World Economic Forum separates negative perceptions from challenging reality

This week, Durban again hosted this year's Southern Africa Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF). The overall theme of the Summit was "Acting on Realities, Confronting Perceptions".

When he spoke at the opening plenary session of the Summit, the Managing Director of the WEF, Mr Frederic Sicre, made the following observation: "When we left Durban last year, we were in the midst of Afro-pessimism. The peace efforts in Angola and the DRC were inconclusive, elections in Zimbabwe were pending and Mozambique had been afflicted with terrible natural disasters. Negative perceptions concerning Africa remain ripe in many boardrooms around the world but we are convinced as an organisation that the opportunities still to be uncovered in Southern Africa will reward those who remain committed to this Continent, through good times and bad."

Despite the persistence of such negative perceptions in many corporate boardrooms, this year's Summit proved to be the most successful of the six Southern Africa summits that our country has been privileged to host. All 14 SADC governments were represented, with three Presidents present, one Prime Minister and a good number of Cabinet ministers, our Premiers, diplomats and senior officials. The Executive Secretary of SADC also participated. The Summit was also privileged to have among its delegates, a delegation from Ghana, led by President Kufuor.

In addition to these Southern African government representatives, the Summit had 900 participants, 700 of whom came from the private sector. Of interest in this regard is the fact that 53 percent of these private sector participants were CEOs of companies drawn from over 40 countries. Twenty-four percent were members of the boards of their companies. Not only did the Summit attract the largest number of participants ever. It was also notable for the large proportion of senior leaders of business who attended in person.

Another welcome development was the participation in significant numbers of trade union leaders, senior academics, local and international NGOs and journalists as delegates, confirming the need for inclusive processes in the effort to achieve a better life for the peoples of Southern Africa and Africa.

We can therefore report that from the point of the view of the numbers of delegates, their seniority, as well as their geographic and sector spread, the 2001 Summit was a resounding success. This is particularly important in the light of the observation made by WEF MD, Mr Sicre, to which we have referred, that "negative perceptions concerning Africa remain ripe in many boardrooms around the world".

The principal point we must make in this regard is that these negative perceptions are nevertheless not as powerful as the hope and confidence that many investors have in the future of our region and continent. In this regard, we must therefore assume that people travelled long distances from across the globe to attend the Summit, because they agree with Mr Sicre when he said that "the opportunities still to be uncovered in Southern Africa will reward those who remain committed to this Continent, through good times and bad".

The very first plenary session of the Summit provided an opportunity to hear directly from the delegations whether, in fact, this conclusion is correct. This session dealt with the issue of 'Confronting Perceptions to Act on Realities', as it was entitled, which first received reports from working groups that had met earlier in the day to discuss this question in its different aspects.

In this regard, some of the most cogent views were expressed by such eminent global economic players as Mr Niall FitzGerald, Co-Chairman of Unilever and Professor Stanley Fischer, First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF. Without hesitation, Mr FitzGerald stated that he was an unapologetic optimist about the future of our region. He said that we have enormous volumes of natural resources, a growing modern industrial capacity, big potential in tourism and a new forward-looking political leadership that needs to be supported and encouraged. Professor Fischer joined in this assessment, making the point that, in many respects, the negative perceptions about the region were not consistent with the positive developments in our area.

At an earlier Summit, a German investor said that as an investor, he gets worried when perceptions about a country are more positive than is justified by actual realities. He went to say that he was not worried about South Africa because, while perceptions might somewhat be negative, the reality was that the reality was overwhelmingly positive. Last year, when some were very keen to have their predictions proved correct that Zimbabwe would have a very negative impact on South Africa, a major international bank published a report on this matter. Referring to how well our economy was performing, it was headed - look at the numbers, not the neighbours!

Professor Fischer reflected the view expressed by the German investor and the international bank, when he spoke this week about perceptions of Southern Africa being in discord with the realities of our region. Of importance in this regard is the fact that Professor Fischer spoke on behalf of a critical international financial institution, the IMF, part of whose task is to make assessments that are as objective as possible, of both national economies and the global economy.

Nevertheless, we must also note some of the specific observations and concerns about our region made by the delegates who came from outside of Southern Africa. Among other things, these delegates stated that they found the independence of key institutions in the region attractive. There are attractive investment opportunities, including those that would be created through privatisation. Overall, they felt that the region is one of interesting promise.

However, the delegates were concerned about what they viewed as poor delivery on promises in the region. They complained about the slow process of privatisation. They said that bureaucracy and corruption were having a debilitating effect. The situation in some countries is such that it creates an image of our region being 'a bad neighbourhood'. They said that governments in the region were not projecting a sufficiently strong vision and leadership. In this context, the delegates also argued that the absence of this strong leadership has also led to poor performance with regard to the critical matter of regional co-operation and integration that must be achieved through SADC.

Clearly, it is of great importance that our region must attend to all these negative perceptions. We have to bear this in mind constantly, that our region is part of the global community. It competes with other regions of the world for investments, access to markets, skills and technology, tourists, approval ratings and all the other things that are necessary for us to achieve the common objective of a better life for all.

In this context, we must also report that in other meetings of the Summit, the delegates emphasised the need for our region urgently to take steps to market itself throughout the world. They pointed out that we have paid no attention to this important matter where, by comparison, even cities in a country such as the United States, conduct sustained campaigns to markets themselves both in the US and elsewhere in the world.

With regard to all these matters, there can be no doubt that the 2001 Durban WEF Summit has communicated both to our country and to our region, two important messages. We have a duty urgently to respond to both of these.

One of these is that the international community has told us that they are confident that our area of Africa is a region of hope. For this reason, they want to stay with us to help transform that hope into an actual situation in which the hope is turned into concrete reality, for the benefit of our peoples.

The second of these messages is that there is a variety of worrying matters we have to attend to, which help to drive away from our region specialists, companies, capital and other resources that we need, radically to improve the lives of our people. We must correct the perceived deficiencies in these areas, to speed up the process of deepening our partnership with the international community, in the common effort to turn ours into a winning region of the world.

Another important feature of the 2001 Durban WEF Summit was the way in which it was organised. Rather than discuss all matters under the sun, as it might have tried to do in previous sessions, this time the Summit sought to focus on a narrow, but critically important range of issues. Mr Sicre summarised this in the words - "less is more".

Accordingly, the Summit paid particular attention to such questions as the struggle against infectious diseases, including AIDS and broadening access to health care services; bridging the digital divide through improved access to information and communication technology; integrating Southern Africa in the world economy with special reference to the global trading system; and the overall challenges facing Africa and the place of MAP in the effort to address these challenges.

The intention and effect of this focus was to ensure that the political, business, labour, academic, civil society and media decision-makers gathered in Durban could arrive at a common perspective on the important issues we have just detailed.

That focus will also help our region itself to improve its capacity to attend to these central issues, assisted by a better understanding of the view of the international community with regard to these issues. An additional advantage of this is that it facilitates the adoption of detailed agreements at the point, for example, when public-private partnership are negotiated and formed, as our countries strive to address all the matters we have detailed.

In this regard, we must make special mention of the great interest in and enthusiasm for the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Programme (MAP) shown by the delegates at the 2001 WEF Durban Summit. From comments made by the delegates, it is clear that the MAP process will have to ensure that it includes as decision-makers, business, labour and civil society, all of whom are determined to work to contribute for the recovery of our Continent.

Accordingly, with regard to the important question of the content and outcome of the Summit, in addition to the issue of participation, we must, again, say that the Summit was an outstanding success, to the extent that it gave further impetus towards the achievement of the objective of a better life for all.

Naturally, the Summit also gave specific attention to the trouble spots in our region. These were the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Angola and Zimbabwe. In all these instances, the delegates made the point very firmly that what they sought to see was peace, stability, democracy and prosperity in these countries, as elsewhere in the region, to end the negative 'bad neighbourhood' effect that events in these countries are having on the rest of the region.

But perhaps what most emphasised the challenge we face as Africans were very unwelcome events in an African country outside the region of Southern Africa. I refer here to the Central African Republic (CAR). Not long before the Durban Summit, the CAR was thrown into turmoil as a result of an armed rebellion which sought to overthrow the democratically elected government led by President Patasse, but which, fortunately, failed. Early reports indicated that a former CAR head of state, who had acceded to power by force, General Andre Kolingba, was behind the attempted armed seizure of power.

This actuality only served to confirm that some of the negative perceptions about our Continent held by some members of the international community in fact coincide with some of our reality. Accordingly, the challenge that continues to face us is to square up to our responsibilities as Africans. To achieve the noble objective of a better life for all the peoples of our region and Continent, we have to act together in defence of democracy, peace and stability everywhere in Africa.

We owe this to the children of Africa, who rose up in revolt in Soweto 25 years ago this month. They understood that if the children of Africa have no future, our Continent has no future.

Houses, security and comfort

The bricks and mortar of a better life for all

When the delegates to the Congress of the People in 1955 said all people shall have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed and to bring up their families in comfort and security they effectively defined the programme of the ANC into the 21st century.

The Congress of the People was the culmination of months of consultation involving thousands of volunteers who crossed the country collecting the demands of the people of South Africa. The Freedom Charter, adopted at the Congress of the People, remains the basic guiding document of the liberation movement in South Africa.

Central among the demands of the people was decent, affordable housing built close to work opportunities, "where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, crèches and social centres".

The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), adopted in 1994 as the ANC's plan for transformation, noted the lack of adequate housing in urban townships and rural settlements had reached crisis proportions. In 1990 the urban housing backlog was conservatively estimated at 1.3 million units, rising to three million units if hostels and rural areas were included. It estimated this would increase by an additional 200,000 households each year.

In the first seven years of office, the ANC-led government housed nearly five million people with 1.2 million houses built or under construction. This has largely been achieved through the Housing Subsidy Scheme which provides a housing subsidy of R16,000 to households earning less than R3,500 a month. The scheme has provided beneficiary households with security of tenure, and access to shelter, sanitation, water, roads, and other services such as electricity and telecommunications.

The problem of informal settlements is also highlighted in the Freedom Charter, which says "slums shall be demolished and new suburbs built". The number and size of informal settlements in South Africa has grown dramatically since the Congress of the People as a result of rapid urbanisation and population growth, unemployment, unequal wealth distribution and the scarcity of affordable land for low cost housing.

The government has responded with the informal settlement upgrading programme to convert shacks to proper homes and provide adequate infrastructure and services. Close to 232,000 households have so far been beneficiaries of this programme in around 300 projects nationwide. In some instances, informal settlements are situated on land that cannot be developed, such as in flood plains, riversides and dumping grounds. This requires the acquisition of new land and the relocation of communities from sometimes potentially dangerous areas.

It is estimated the approximately R3bn which government spends annually through its housing programme sustains 45,000 jobs in the building industry. An additional 43,000 jobs are sustained indirectly in the building materials and components markets.

While housing provision continues, a major challenge still remains the location of new housing closer to employment opportunities and economic and social services. The prohibitive cost of land in many areas has undermined the viability of constructing affordable housing in central areas. Spatial planning at local level needs to more effectively integrate communities racially and economically to effectively undo the effects of apartheid planning. This is being accompanied by an accelerated strategy for the release for development of well located state land.

Health

The preventive health scheme envisaged in the Freedom Charter, "with special care for mothers and young children", has taken shape over the last seven years with the development of an integrated national health system providing accessible health care services to all South Africans.

Focusing on the provision of primary health care, the new district health system has been able to bring health services within easier reach of about six million people by building 500 new clinics in largely under-served areas.

Health care is free to pregnant women and children under the age of six years. Other programmes to promote women's health include safe terminations of pregnancy, the development of guidelines on screening for cervical cancer, training of forensic nurses to enhance capacity to deal with rape victims, plans to improve access to contraceptive services and enquiry into maternal deaths in childbirth.

Community service for medical students and the strategic use of foreign doctor are among the programmes to address the problem of limited access of rural and urban informal settlements to medical doctors.

Government's efforts to make health care more accessible to millions of poor South Africans includes measures like generic substitution, compulsory licensing and parallel importation to significantly lower the cost of medicines.

While the majority of South Africans in 1955 had ample experience of poverty and poor access to health care, they could not have foreseen how these problems would be exacerbated by the HIV/Aids epidemic. The challenges for the health sector are now so much greater, requiring in addition to socio-economic development and strengthening the health sector, the development of strong preventive programme, aggressive treatment of opportunistic infections and targeted and appropriate use of anti-retrovirals. The HIV/Aids epidemic has demonstrated more clearly than anything else the importance to health care of social and economic upliftment across society.

Social development

The Freedom Charter maintains the state needs to play a central role in the protecting and caring for vulnerable groups in society, including "the aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick". This is at the forefront of current work to develop a comprehensive social security system which will address gaps in government's approach to issues of social inequality, income poverty and food security.

Already government plays a substantial role in alleviating poverty through social security and development programmes. It provides social grants to over 3.5 million people, representing income support for a large number of poor households. The number of caregivers who receive child support grants continues to rise dramatically - more than 1.2 million by May. The government is committed to reaching three million children by 2003.

Pilot projects have been established for unemployed women with children under five years to provide economic and developmental opportunities. They are targeted at women living in deep rural areas and previously disadvantaged informal settlements. Other programmes focus on household food security through the establishment of food production clusters in poor communities, provision of social support structures in communities badly affected by HIV/Aids and poverty, and broadening the skills base and promotion of work opportunities for young people.

MORE INFORMATION:

• The Freedom Charter
• Information about the Congress of the People
• South African Department of Housing
• South African Department of Health
• South African Department of Social Development

Religion and the Freedom Charter

A document rooted in the great religious concepts revealed to humanity

During the years of apartheid it was illegal to produce or possess copies of the Freedom Charter. At the Christian Institute offices in Braamfontein, where Beyers Naude was director, we had state-of-the-art one-at-a-time rotary duplicators, and an early photocopy machine. With scissors and paste we reduced the Freedom Charter to fit on to a single page of paper, and after hours, when most of the staff had gone home, produced tens of thousands of copies of the Charter. Out at his church in Kagiso, Rev Frank Chikane had an adult literacy scheme which also used duplicators, and also ran after hours production lines for the Charter. As those illegal copies were circulated through the country no one knew they had been produced in secret by religious organisations.

The Freedom Charter is a deeply spiritual document. Every clause of it can be supported by chapter and verse quotations from the Bible, the Quoran, the Hindu Scriptures, and other holy books. It is rooted in the great religious concepts revealed to humanity through the ages: justice, peace, liberty, government, authority, land, 'brotherhood', opportunity, freedom.

Plenty of religious people attacked the Freedom Charter and in doing so revealed the way in which so many of them were supporting fallacies of faith, rather than the real thing. Two false religious positions in particular were exposed by the Charter - and they must be spelt out again because these heresies are still promoted by conservative right wing forces today.

The first was that religion was only concerned with private goodness, and with the progress of individual souls to heaven. In fact the scriptures make clear that religion is concerned about the whole of human life, about society, justice, loving our neighbour, the land, and the role of peoples and cultures. Jesus proclaimed to the suffering people of his age that God's Ruling Power (the 'kingdom of God') was operating on Earth to redeem the poor and oppressed and down trodden, to bring a new birth to the rich and religious traditionalists, and give light and life to the Scribes and Pharisees who were the fundamentalists of his day.

It was not only a heavenly vision, but an earthly vision too. The life of the human spirit cannot be separated from the human body, human mind, and human community which make us all tick. Jesus was enforcing the vision of the prophets both before and after him in all religions, and the same insights appear constantly in the Freedom Charter.

The second fallacy was that the main focus and concern of religion was to run churches, mosques, temples and synagogues. Such people sought to separate religion and God from government, politics, economics and social responsibilities, and confine religion to promoting religious institutions. It is a total nonsense.

The spiritual realities within the human community which most of us call the Spirit of God can never be confined with the walls and concepts of religious structures. Even those who withdraw into a full time life of prayer and contemplation do it for the glory and fulfilment of God in the whole of creation - and that includes the visions spelt out in the Freedom Charter.

It was not a mistake that Father Trevor Huddleston and other religious personnel were at Kliptown in 1955. One of the great needs of today is for religious people to study the Freedom Charter again and rediscover and reinterpret its truths for the generation which is moving from liberation to transformation.

Under the old Supreme Court in Pretoria there were some large holding cells where prisoners were kept when the Court above was having an adjournment. The walls had originally been painted white, but over the years had been covered with the most unusual graffiti. People had written up long lists of those who had been tried for treason, from way back, with summaries of charges and sentences and political slogans. There were two complete copies of the Freedom Charter which people had known by heart and inscribed on those basement walls, so that the foundations of the Supreme Court were quite literally set in the Freedom Charter.

I spent a couple of weeks there in 1983 but it was impossible to feel alone. All the great ones of the past had been there, and standing reading the Freedom Charter under those circumstances was a deeply spiritual experience. Treason? Utter nonsense. This is what humanity and God were all about. It still is.

Cedric Mayson is coordinator of the ANC Commission for Religious Affairs.

Traditional leadership

South Africans as a whole must determine the role of amakhosi

South Africans as a whole need to determine the role and function of traditional leadership in a democratic South Africa. This is the principle underlying the process developed to finalise policy on traditional leadership and governance, particularly in the context of the new local government system.

Some people have tried to present the issue as a debate between traditional leaders on one side and government on the other. This ignores the fact that all the country's citizens have a direct interest in the matter, which touches on governance, democracy and development. It assumes also that all traditional leaders have a common view on the many issues under discussion.

This process agreed on in national negotiations involves the following steps:

Step one is the drafting of legislation to deal with the powers of traditional leaders as affected by the current municipal legislation. A Ministerial Committee was established to ensure broad consultations before the draft legislation is tabled in cabinet and parliament. The committee has receive submissions from, among others, the National Coalition of Traditional Leaders, the Organisation of Traditional Leaders of South Africa, the Municipal Demarcation Board, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the National Land Commission and the Commission for Gender Equality. This process will be concluded before the adjournment of this session of Parliament.

Step two includes investigations about provincial and national functions which should be devolved to local government; including functions to be devolved to traditional leaders. This process includes a review of the 1500 pieces of legislation that affect the powers and functions of traditional leaders. This will result in an amendment to existing legislation or new legislation. The review is work in progress.

Step three involves consultation on a white paper on the institution of traditional leadership, on the fundamental question of its role and place in a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist society. This will provide the framework for a final act on the institution of traditional leadership. This may well include an amendment to the Constitution. The white paper is in the process of being drafted.

However, some traditional leaders want to proceed immediately to step three. It would mean their views about the role of the institution of traditional leadership would chiefly determine final policy and law, even before a discussion in broader society on the role of the institution in a democracy. This approach runs counter to the principles of constitutional democracy on which the new South Africa is founded.

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