Nedlac Summit 1999

According to Nedlac's Constitution,"the Executive Council shall convene an annual meeting of members and interested parties, called the annual summit, to report on and consider the activities of the Council."

In previous years, the summit has been around the month of May, but for a number of reasons, one of which was the June election, Summit 1999 was scheduled for September this year. It was subsequently moved to October to allow forthe Special Executive Committee Session to take place before the summit.

President Thabo Mbeki will chair theSummit.

Each constituency has been requested to submit the names of the 60 delegates it will be sending to the Summit. The Nedlac secretariatwill be making all the necessary arrangements for those delegations. Apart from theconstituencies, the Nedlac Constitution says that the Summit should involve as manyrelevant group(s) as possible in order to give feedback on Council activities; obtaininputs from organisations or persons not normally involved in Council activities andobtain broader consultation on issues being deliberated on in the Council. In line with this, Nedlac also invites Parliamentary portfolio chairpersons; political parties that are represented in Parliament; representatives from foreign embassies, NGOs and a host ofother groupings to send representatives to the Summit.

In order to create fora for discussion on specific issues, the day's activities begin with two rounds of commissions, coveringeight topics. These sessions are recorded, and a comprehensive report is compiled afterthe Summit.

The plenary session of the summit receives inputsfrom each of the constituency delegation leaders, and a report-back from the ExecutiveDirector on the year's activities. Messages of support are welcome, and can be faxed or emailed to the Nedlac secretariat.

In most years, a Summit declaration has been adopted, which sets out priorities for the organisation for the year ahead.

All the speeches from the summit, as well as the Executive Director's report, will be available on Nedlac's website shortly after the 4 October.

For the first time last year, a display area was set up outside the plenary hall. All the Nedlac constituencies contributed material theywished to display or distribute. The display was very well received, and we are planning another one for this year. All constituencies are welcome to deliver material to be in cd on the display to the Nedlac offices any time before 1 October 1999.