Address by Ruth Ntshulana-Bhengu (ANC MP) to the Nedlac Summit

Sandton, 9 November 2002

Sustainable Development: A platform for growth

This year Johannesburg hosted the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the biggest United Nations event ever to be held on the African continent. This all-inclusive Summit on Sustainable Development saw about 65 000 delegates and 6000 media representatives descend on Johannesburg.

Thanks to the Tourism and Environmental Affairs Department, the Foreign Affairs Department and the Johannesburg World Summit Company, the summit held 10 years after the landmark Earth Summit, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, was a success.

The true measure for the success of Sustainable Development however lies with work that is ahead of us as we face the challenges of addressing issues of poverty, inequality and underdevelopment in the developing world.

The central focus of sustainable development is therefore to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.

In practical terms this means that we must rise up to the challenge of implementing strategies, which ensure improved livelihood for our people and prosperity for all.

This is the revolutionary responsibility that our generation is charged with.

It is an historic mission and history will judge us harshly if we do not rise to the challenges posed by the cause of Sustainable Development.

Future generations will be entitled to point an accusing finger if we do not succeed.

We dare not fail!!!

As the United Nations, Secretary General Mr. Kofi Annan put it at the summit,

"…We have to go out and take action. This is not the end. It is the beginning."

We as partners in the cause of Sustainable Development need to implement resolutions adopted by that assembly.

What then must we do as civil society to advance the cause of Sustainable development?

The Sustainable Development Summit in its declaration states that,

 "… sustainable development requires a long-term perspective and broad based participation in policy formulation, decision making and implementation at all levels. As social partners we will continue to work for stable partnerships with all major respecting the independent, important roles of each of these…"   

We therefore need to affirm this statement by raising certain fundamentals that must underpin sustainable development.

The first of these fundamentals is that there should be in place partnerships between government and civil society at all levels of governance. This is in essence means that responsibility for implementing a strategy for sustainable development cannot lie with the Government and government departments alone.

Political organizations, the civil society including business, labour, religious organizations, the civic movement, community based organizations and NGO's amongst others have an equal if not a greater role to play in Sustainable Development.

This could be done through creating and nurturing partnership relations between government and civil society. The necessity for this is borne by the fact that because issues raised by sustainable development directly affect civil society some initiatives are expected from civil society institutions.

This therefore necessitates that there should be a dynamic relationship between government and civil society.

It is proper then to reflect on a perhaps controversial subject. This is the matter of the independence of civil society organization. I will not dwell much on this point however I need to point out that in my opinion civil society organization needs to maintain its independence.

This independence is of necessity a result of the fact that meaningful partnerships between government and civil society has to be built on the integrity and mutual respect of both parties to the relationship.

This to me implies that civil society institutions should be independent. This independence though is further characterized by the necessity for civil society to define itself as being in partnership with government for the cause of sustainable development.

Having said that I need to highlight the various roles that sectors of our society need to play in sustainable development.       

The corporate sector is called upon to ensure that it assists the NGO's capacity in such areas as finance and administration. The NGO's have an equal responsibility that they improve their capacity in these key critical areas.

Black Economic Empowerment groups need to broaden the scope of their activities so that an even broader base of our community benefits from efforts at black economic empowerment.

It also appropriate at this stage to raise the importance of women as participants in sustainable development. The challenges posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, malaria, TB has left this sector of our population to care after the orphaned. This has placed a heavy burden on this sector of the population.

The centrality of women who overall are the backbone of families in the most poverty stricken areas of our country needs to be affirmed. There is therefore a need to empower women as an effective way of combating poverty.

Gender sensitive education should form a critical area of work in pursuing Sustainable Development.

Sustainable development whose focus is that of doing away with inequality needs to ensure that our Sustainable Development programmes promote gender equality

The participation of women in the cause of sustainable development is pivotal. This in practical terms means that there should be greater representation of women in decision making structures charged with the responsibility of driving the cause of sustainable development at all levels.

The youth is another important sector of the population that needs to play a decisive role in sustainable development. The fact that there is a large number of unemployed youth in our country makes this a priority.

This therefore calls for greater representativity of youth in decision-making. The youth needs to build its capacity to partake in sustainable development by gaining skills and expertise in education, science and technology.

There is also the need to broaden our education so that informal education is an integral part of sustainable development.

We also need to pursue the objectives of NEPAD, the programme designed to address eradication of underdevelopment in Africa.A critical challenge here is the need to involve all sectors of our population in the NEPAD projects.

In conclusion no debate on sustainable development would be complete without including environmental awareness. If we are to address poverty the issue of land use, as a means to eradicate poverty remains critical.

I trust that we will all approach the task of sustainable development with enthusiasm and with the same activism as we showed in our struggle against apartheid.

This struggle for sustainable development in the words of President Mbeki needs,

"… brave , bold, conscientious, and principled people."

I believe that present here today are such people. We must spare no effort in ensuring that we succeed in this struggle for sustainable development.

I thank you.