THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT SUMMIT
The Growth and Development Summit Agreement, signed by all the
Nedlac constituencies on 7 June, contains commitments by all the
constituencies on what they will contribute to addressing the
growth and development challenges facing South Africa.
These commitments are summarised on the inside pages of this
Dialogue. Nedlac's role in the post-Summit period will be two-fold:
to ensure that the constituencies continue to focus and engage on
the issues that were not dealt with prior to the Summit; and to
facilitate the ongoing monitoring of the implementation of the
commitments made by the constituencies.
Joint Communication Strategy
The constituencies have agreed that a joint communication
strategy is required to ensure that the agreements are disseminated
to all their structures and as widely as possible. Already, the
Department of Labour has committed to producing a booklet
containing the agreement and all the speeches that were delivered
at the Summit. Nedlac will assist in distributing this booklet to
all the constituencies. The agreement and speeches are already
available on various constituency websites, including Nedlac's
(www.nedlac.org.za).
Nedlac Chambers and structures
The four Nedlac Chambers (Labour Market; Trade and Industry;
Development and Public Finance and Monetary Policy) and other
structures will have standing items on their agendas dealing with
the GDS agreements. They will receive regular reports on the
progress of the implementation of the agreements.
All the Nedlac Chambers met on 19 June in order to agree on the
work programme for their chamber arising out of the Summit.
Nedlac Executive Council
Nedlac's Executive Council, the highest decision-making
structure of Nedlac, will conduct an annual review of the success
of the GDS agreements, and make adjustments where necessary. The
Executive Council must also consider the issues on which the
constituencies did not reach agreement prior to the Summit. The
Executive Council is meeting on 18 July.
GDS Task Teams
Four task teams were set up in the negotiations phase prior to
the Summit.
These covered the four themes of the Summit, namely
- More jobs, better jobs, decent work for all
- Addressing the investment challenge
- Advancing equity, developing skills, creating economic
opportunities for all and extending services
- Local action and implementation.
In some instances, these task teams will continue to meet to
finalise the details of the agreements reached. Amongst the issues
that will require engagement are to detail the investment
instruments and measures required to enable constituencies work
towards investing 5% of their investible income in growth and
job-creating investments. Another issue that requires more
discussion is that of the measures required to promote decent work
and to address the problem of casualisation. The local action task
team will need to develop a strategy and programme to promote
social dialogue at the local level. Finally, a number of the
agreements do not spell out practical implementation strategies.
All the task teams will have to flesh out these details.