Poor of the world unite to build a better future

The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, will arrive in our country on the day we publish this edition of ANC TODAY. Our movement extends a warm welcome to this great son of the Brazilian working class who is also an old ally of our movement and struggling people. A leader of the sister party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), the Workers Party, Lula is visiting us as President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, having won the elections last year and assumed his position on 1 January this year.

He will arrive in our country having visited three Portuguese-speaking countries, Sao Tome & Principe, Angola and Mozambique, as well as Namibia. President Lula has explained that his government sees the strengthening of its relations with the African continent as one of the central challenges of its foreign policy. The trip he has undertaken to our continent represents an important step towards the realisation of this goal.

Brazil and democratic South Africa agreed immediately after our liberation that the two countries should form a strong partnership together to confront their common challenges. Practical steps were taken under the leadership of Presidents Nelson Mandela and Fernando Cardoso to give effect to this shared commitment.

President Lula da Silva's visit to our country constitutes a further and important stage in the development of this relationship. In our discussions, we will therefore pay particular attention to new initiatives the two governments and countries can take further to deepen their relations. Of importance also is the fact that President Lula will be accompanied by an important delegation of Brazilian trade union and business leaders.

South Africa and Brazil are developing countries of the South. Both countries have a relatively well-developed economic sector, which exists side by side with serious levels of poverty and underdevelopment. The two countries have some of the widest disparities in terms of distribution of wealth, income and opportunity.

Both have large black populations who have been the victims of discrimination and social exclusion, and today constitute the majority of the poor and the marginalised. They are subject to similar social pressures, such as rapid urbanisation and the growth of informal settlements, crime, drug abuse, domestic violence and so on.

Our economies are open to the global economy, within which they are integrated. Therefore we share common concerns about all important matters that relate to the world economy. These include issues of trade, capital flows, intellectual property rights, technology transfers, and so on.

At the same time, the Brazilian economy is the largest in Latin America, whereas ours is the largest in sub-Saharan Africa. Brazil works with its immediate neighbours in the regional economic framework provided by Mercosur. For our part, we work with our neighbours within the context of both the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Brazil and Argentina, both members of Mercosur, are our closest neighbours to the West, across the Atlantic.

Our two countries also share common concerns about matters relating to the multilateral system of governance. Accordingly, we would like to see a strengthened, democratised, and more representative multilateral system that is responsive to the needs of the billions of poor people in the world and is respected by all countries. This relates to the entirety of the multilateral system, including the UN, the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO.

All this makes it obvious that we cannot but seek to strengthen the relations between Brazil and South Africa. This will help both countries to draw on each other's capacities to address the common challenges, for the mutual benefit, as well as use their collective strength to advance the cause of the poor of their countries and the world.

The legacy of colonialism geared an important part of our international relations towards the countries of the North, especially our former coloniser, the United Kingdom (UK). This is also true of other African countries relative to their former colonisers. In our country this was further entrenched by the fact that until relatively recently, the white minority in our country officially classified and described itself as European, characterising us as non-European.

We could also see this attachment to "the mother country" when those who feared democracy and non-racism in our country fled to the UK after the democratic victory of 1994. These will assume that it is only right that we should work further to strengthen our relations with "the mother country".

At the same time, they look down with disdain at everything we do to reinforce our relations with an important country of the South, such as Brazil. Sections of our media do not hesitate to show this contempt. We make these comments to emphasise the point that all progressive and forward-looking people in our country should work consciously to build our relations with Brazil and not assume that this will happen automatically.

Brazil has the second largest African population in the world after Nigeria. Naturally, these African-Brazilians feel very close both to our continent and our country. This also affects the rest of the Brazilian population, which shares this sentiment. If for no other reason, this is sufficient basis for us to seek strong relations of friendship and solidarity with Brazil.

Brazil also has a population of 180 million people. It is therefore one of the six biggest countries in the world in terms of population. Its economy is among the 10 largest in the world. It is the second largest in the Americas, after the US, and the biggest in Latin America. It necessarily plays on important role in this region of the world. All this points to the fact that our foreign policy cannot but also focus on strengthening our relations with such an important country.

Today, understandably, everybody regularly discusses the issue of globalisation. This points to the fact of the importance of this phenomenon and its impact on present day society. We ourselves have, in the past, highlighted some of the features of the contemporary process of globalisation.

One of these is the concentration and centralisation of political, economic, military, technological, communications and other power in a few countries of the world - the richest and most developed. The other is the limitation of the sovereignty of states, reflecting the level of integration of human society globally.

As a result of this, many national decisions cannot be taken without reference to decisions and developments originating outside the borders of each state. This limitation of sovereignty impacts unevenly on the various countries, with the poorest being the worst affected. Those with a concentration of power are so positioned that they are best able to mediate the impact of globalisation on their capacity to protect their sovereignty.

The process of globalisation is also characterised by the existence within the world economy of large volumes of capital, much of which functions as financial capital, rather than capital that is used to increase productive capacity throughout the world. The fact, however, is that there is sufficient capital within the world economy to address the challenges of global poverty and underdevelopment.

At the same time, even as humanity has this capital, which constantly multiplies itself, poverty in the world is not necessarily diminishing. And certainly, the disparity between the rich and poor of the North and the South, between and within countries, is widening rather than narrowing. The means to overcome poverty exist in the North, side by side with the further entrenchment of poverty principally in the South.

All these features of the process of globalisation are relevant to us as countries of the South, as countries with large numbers of poor people who must also move out of conditions of underdevelopment, as countries that do not belong among the small number that benefits from the centralisation and concentration of power.

At the same time we know that it is impossible to meet the challenges posed by the process of globalisation on the basis merely of national decisions and actions. The problems thrown up by globalisation can only be solved through global action. Therefore national actions and decisions, as well as international actions and decisions are needed. At the same time, we are aware of the reality that many problems in our countries cannot be solved except in the context of the reality of "the global village".

Thus apart from helping us to respond to matters that are of bilateral interest to our two countries, our partnership with Brazil must necessarily also address the issues posed by the process of globalisation, in the interest of both our countries and peoples. To be heard, we have to speak with one voice. And we must make certain that we are heard, not for reasons of prestige, but because if we are not heard, we will not be able to solve many of the problems that afflict our societies.

Earlier this year, India, Brazil and our country decided to form a Dialogue Forum. Based on the names of the countries involved, this Forum has come to be known as IBSA. It joins Brazil and South Africa to India, the second biggest country in the world in terms of population. Between them, the three account for 20 percent of the world population, the majority of them poor. India's economy is the 4th largest in the world, after the US, China and Japan.

Once more, the IBSA Forum was formed to address the shared concerns of the three countries involved and to increase cooperation between them, for their mutual benefit. In this regard, we must point to processes currently in progress in the area of trade. SACU is involved in negotiations with Mercosur to conclude a Free Trade Agreement. SACU is also working towards negotiating a similar agreement with India. Mercosur and India have already signed a framework agreement that will lead to the conclusion of a Preferential and later, a Free Trade Agreement.

The fact of the shared interests among the IBSA countries also found expression at the recent WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico, where they joined with China and other countries of the South, such as Argentina, Indonesia, Nigeria and others, to form what was then the G20+ group of developing countries. This group was formed to ensure that Cancun respected and advanced the Development Agenda that had been agreed at the WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar.

The Doha Development Agenda is part of the agreed global agenda to impact on the process of globalisation in a manner that will help the poor of the world. That global agenda also includes such international agreements as the Millennium Development Goals, the Monterrey Consensus, the Action Plan agreed at the Johannesburg WSSD, the decisions of the Durban UN World Conference against Racism, and NEPAD, which was endorsed by the UN General Assembly.

Necessarily, the achievement of the objectives contained in these agreements ineluctably implies the transformation of the multilateral institutions of governance, as has in principle been agreed for instance with regard to the restructuring of the United Nations.

In addition to their pursuit of concrete South-South cooperation, the Brazil-South Africa Partnership and IBSA are committed to the pursuit of these integrated goals, which serve as the contemporary global consensus to build a more equitable world, free of poverty, underdevelopment and social exclusion.

Thus both the Partnership and IBSA are not targeted against any country, or group of countries, or institution. They are critically important initiatives to promote the realisation of the objectives of the contemporary global consensus to which we have referred. They seek to do this both by promoting South-South cooperation, and seeking to speak with one voice on the issues defined within the global consensus. They aim to achieve what was described at the Rio XXII Congress of the Socialist International as "globalisation governed by the people".

Our movement, government and country have an obligation continuously to engage the people of Brazil and the rest of the world, in our interest. Together with them, we must strive to give content to the vision of a genuinely new world order that we need to ensure the achievement of the goals of our national democratic revolution and the African Renaissance.

This week we will welcome President Lula of Brazil and his important government, trade union and business delegation as friends, allies and comrades-in-arms in the common effort to give hope to the millions of poor people in our countries. The poor of the world have no choice but to unite. They have nothing to lose but their misery.

Ten Year Review III

Together we have turned the economy around

Since the ANC was elected to government in 1994, South Africa has achieved a level of macroeconomic stability not seen in the country for 40 years.

This is among the findings recently published by government in a discussion document called 'Towards a Ten Year Review'. The document aims among other things to contribute to a broad-ranging public engagement on the achievements of government during the first ten years of democracy.

By the time of the first democratic elections in 1994, the economy was in a state of near-terminal decline. Growth had virtually reached a standstill. The economy had been shedding jobs for many years, and industries were ill-equipped to compete in the rapidly changing global economy.

One of the major challenges facing the incoming government was a massive public debt that had swelled exponentially in the dying years of the apartheid government. The ANC-led government had to reduce this debt - and the debilitating cost of servicing it - while at the same time devoting resources to meet huge backlogs in social services and infrastructure.

Yet through intelligent policies and sound management, the ANC has managed not only to halt the country's economic decline, but also to turn the economy around to the extent that the country is now in a position to move decisively forward to tackle the economic and social legacy of apartheid.

Total public sector debt has fallen from over 60 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1994 to just 50 percent in 2003. That has meant that less of the country's budget is spent servicing debt, more money is freed up for social spending, and the debt burden on future generations has been significantly reduced.

This has been achieved due to a significant reduction in the budget deficit - the amount by which state spending exceeds the amount of money collected by the state in any given year. In 1993, the budget deficit stood at 9.5 percent of GDP. By the 2002/3 financial year, it had fallen to just over one percent. At the same time however, government was able to impressively improve tax collection, enabling it to expand spending on social services and work towards meeting some of the major backlogs in service delivery.

From a negative per capita growth rate in the decade before 1994, the economy has grown since then at an average rate of 2.8 percent. While this figure is relatively moderate, growth has nevertheless been consistent. Investment has also been quite moderate compared to some of the more successful developing economies, although it has begun to improve in the last three years.

After the massive investment outflows of the 1980s and early 1990s, the country has had positive levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) over the last ten years. There has been significant foreign investment in the motor industry, chemicals sector, mining and dairy products.

The discussion document notes that for some foreign investors a poor understanding of democratic South Africa has been a major constraint to investment: "This is the result of poor information, and the inclination of the media to portray the South African story as a confusing drama, rather than a saga of steady improvement."

These moderate levels of growth and investment have meant that the economy has not been able to create job opportunities at the rate required. Between 1995 and 2002 the number of people employed grew by around 1.6 million people. However, the number of unemployed people also grew, by about 2.4 million, because far more people were entering the job market.

The challenge of creating enough new jobs to meet the growing number of job seekers is complicated by the country's relatively narrow skills base, a result of bantu education, decades of job reservation and economy that was predominantly engaged in the extraction and export of raw materials. Many changes have taken place in the global economy in recent years, which have had a profound effect on the South African economy. One of these is the shift from the primary sector, with industries such as mining and agriculture, to the secondary and tertiary sectors, where manufacturing, banking and other services are found. This has meant that there is now a far greater demand for skilled workers than at any time in the country's past.

Significant changes have taken place in the country's trade and industrial policies, resulting in an improved balance of trade and a shift from primary exports to higher value-added secondary and tertiary exports. This means that the country is able to derive more value from its natural resources and create more job opportunities. It has also positioned the country's industries to better compete in, and benefit from, the global market.

Yet for all the economic achievements of the last decade, substantial challenges still remain. Not least of these is the high rate of unemployment. Part of the solution to this problem is to address the problem of low levels of skilling through greater and more focused investment on education and training. It requires greater levels of investment, including investment by government, South African business and foreign direct investment. It calls for higher levels of economic growth, and a culture of savings among all South Africans. All of this needs to take place alongside a thoroughgoing transformation of the economy to ensure ever greater numbers of people benefit from economic activity.

The challenges are many. However, South Africa stands ready to confront these challenges thanks in the main to the achievements of the first ten years of democracy, to the experience gained during that period, and to the lessons learnt.

More Information:

• Towards a Ten Year Review, October 2003

Voter registration

Millions take their future into their own hands

Millions of South Africans, many of them youth, are set to take their future into their own hands this weekend as they register to vote for the first time in their lives.

Throughout the weekend of 8-9 November, voting stations will be open across the country for people to register as voters for next year's election. People who did not register to vote in the 1999 or 2000 elections, and those who have moved since then, will have an opportunity to put their names on the voters' roll. People who have registered before will also be able to check their details.

To encourage people to register, the ANC has deployed its national and provincial leadership to communities throughout South Africa. President Thabo Mbeki will be visiting communities in the Durban area, while Deputy President Jacob Zuma will be visiting parts of the Eastern Cape. The National Chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota will be in the Western Cape. Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe and Deputy Secretary General Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele will visit parts of Gauteng. Other members of the National Executive Committee - together with leaders of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the SA Communist Party (SACP) and the SA National Civics Organisation (SANCO) - will be involved in door-to-door activities around the country to encourage people to register.

This massive effort, which compliments work being done by the IEC itself and other groups in society, is aimed at ensuring that all South Africans are equipped to participate in the democratic process.

There are currently over 18 million registered voters. However, it is estimated that as many as 9.5 million people over the age of 18 may not be registered. Large numbers of these people can be found in the metro areas of Durban, Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Cape Town. The youth form a significant portion of those who are unregistered, particularly those who were too young to vote in previous elections.

While every South African over the age of 18 is eligible to vote, registration is open to everyone over the age of 16. Once these people turn 18, their names will be included on the voters roll and they will be allowed to vote.

The registration of voters is critical to the future of democratic participation. South Africa's hard-won democracy is not yet ten years old, and every effort needs to be made to deepen it.

The ongoing process of transformation and reconstruction needs to be driven by the people. The people need to decide which direction this process should take and which organisations should have a mandate to undertake this process in government. While elections are a cornerstone of democracy, they are not the only way in which the people need to participate in governance and development. Participation in elections needs to be complimented by participation in community-based forums, like ward committees, policing forums and development forums. People need to be involved in the process of developing laws and monitoring their implementation.

A great deal has been achieved since the people first made their choice in 1994. However, much more needs to be done to improve the lives of all South Africans. Unless people participate in the process of choosing their public representatives, however, the work that still needs to be done is unlikely to proceed at a pace and in a direction that people would want.

This is particularly important for the youth, who are, quite literally, the future of South Africa. They need to participate in the elections in great numbers to ensure that they direct the future that they will live in. Interaction with the youth, together with some recent public surveys, show that youth are the most politically engaged section of society, and most interested in ensuring a better future. The challenge we face this weekend, and in the months ahead, is to ensure that this interest is translated into registered voters and participation in next year's election.

The message of the ANC to the youth and people of South Africa is: "Your future is in your hands. Register now to vote."

More Information:

• ANC Registration Campaign
• Independent Electoral Commission

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