South Africa Minister of Minerals and Energy Buyelwa Sonjica, addressing the afternoon session of the intergovernmental seminar on cooperation for development, being held on Tuesday in Pretoria, stressed the importance of cooperation between developing countries, popularly called south-south cooperation.

“We have similar challenges, challenges about poverty, under development, - legacies from colonialism. But also challenges from globalisation, such as competitiveness,” she said.

The Minister focused on the question of energy, stating that it was sensible for countries to be concerned about the security of energy supply.

She pointed out that energy forms the basis of success for modern economies.

“We cannot take it for granted any more,” she said.

She referred to the fact that, as time goes on, the demand for energy will increase and argued that no government can rely purely on national policies to ensure the security of its energy supply.

“We need to cooperate, to learn from each other,” she asserted.

She cited the need for regional and institutional cooperation and emphasised the need to examine clean and renewable sources of energy, mentioning the Brazilian ethanol programme as an example.

She highlighted that access to energy for households can reduce poverty.

Turning to the recent power outages experienced in various parts of South Africa, Sonjica argued that these were not the result of a failure to plan but rather that the plans had been too conservative.

She argued that rapid growth was putting a strain on the country's energy supplies but that government had a programme in place to address this.

Concerning liquid fuels, she stated that the country had a problem with storage, making it difficult to import all the liquid fuels that the economy needs.

At the end of the day, she stated, the natural resources of developing countries must allow them to address the challenges they