Heiligendamm and Africa - an outstanding promise

On the day this edition of ANC TODAY is published, a delegation of African Heads of State and Government will meet with its G8 counterparts at the Heiligendamm, Germany Annual Summit Meeting of the G8. The African delegation will be led by the Current Chairperson of the African Union, President John Kuffuor of Ghana, and the new Chairperson of the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.

This will be the eighth meeting of this kind, the first having taken place in Tokyo on the eve of the 2000 G8 Summit Meeting in Okinawa, Japan, the year before the adoption of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) at the Lusaka, Zambia OAU Summit Meeting in 2001.

At the Tokyo meeting, the African leaders informed the G8 that the OAU would prepare a continental development plan, and would request the developed world to restructure its economic relations with Africa to respond to the OAU plan. Accordingly it was agreed that further interaction between African representatives and the G8 would take place during the 2001 G8 Summit Meeting in Genoa, Italy.

At the Genoa meeting, during which the African representatives presented what became the NEPAD programme, it was decided that the G8 would prepare its response, which would be considered at the next G8 Summit Meeting in 2002, and which was held in Kananaskis, Canada in 2002.

Thanks in good measure to the inclusive preparatory work done by the then Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chretien, the 2002 G8 Summit Meeting adopted the G8 Africa Action Plan which remains, to this day, the base G8 document that should guide the G8 in its interaction with the NEPAD process.

The G8 Africa Action Plan

To underline the importance of the decisions taken at Kananaskis with regard to the relations between the developed countries and Africa, we would like to cite some portions of the G8 Africa Action Plan (AAP). The AAP said:

"The NEPAD provides an historic opportunity to overcome obstacles to development in Africa. Our Africa Action Plan is the G8's initial response, designed to encourage the imaginative effort that underlies the NEPAD and to lay a solid foundation for future cooperation.

"The case for action is compelling. Despite its great potential and human resources, Africa continues to face some of the world's greatest challenges. The many initiatives designed to spur Africa's development have failed to deliver sustained improvements to the lives of individual women, men and children throughout Africa...

"NEPAD recognises that the prime responsibility for Africa's future lies with Africa itself. We will continue to support African efforts to encourage public engagement in the NEPAD and we will continue to consult with our African partners on how we can best assist their own efforts. G8 governments are committed to mobilise and energise global action, marshal resources and expertise, and provide impetus in support of the NEPAD's objectives. As G8 partners, we will undertake mutually reinforcing actions to help Africa accelerate growth and make lasting gains against poverty."

Consistent with these commitments, Africa will again serve as an important item on the agenda of the G8 Heiligendamm Summit Meeting. In this regard, in a policy statement on 24 May 2007, German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel said:

"The Summit will focus on seven themes. The seventh theme is the future of Africa. Along with the economic and climate policy themes, this will be the main focus of the Heiligendamm Summit. We want to continue and expand our reform partnership with Africa...At the Africa Partnership Forum, held over the past few days, we have again felt how vital our commitment to our neighbouring continent is.

"We can see that Africa is on the move. Some impressive leaders and characters are at work. More and more states in Africa are becoming democratic. Numerous African states now show stable economic growth of over 5%, and the number of armed conflicts on the continent is falling. On the other hand, much remains to be done...

"I think we all realise that our own interest in a stable world order makes it vital for the African continent to achieve sustainable economic and political progress...Together with the Heads of State and Government of the G8 countries and the major emerging economies, we aim to give globalisation a human face. To this end we want to create the right conditions for greater growth and employment, and we want to find solutions to the major challenges facing humanity such as climate change and the future of Africa."

Naturally and correctly, ahead of, during and after the G8 Summit Meetings certainly since 2002, much of the public discussion in Africa and outside our continent has focused on an assessment and critique of the practical impact on Africa's challenges of the partnership with the G8 and the developed world in general. As it must, this has happened and will happen with regard to the Heiligendamm Summit Meeting.

But it may very well also be that it is time that we, as Africans, should go back to the vision we developed as we formulated and launched NEPAD. In this context we would assess what we ourselves have done to give effect to the objectives we set ourselves, a critical part of which was the strengthening of a new and dynamic partnership for development and progress within and between our own countries.

NEPAD founding principles

Our vision was spelt out in the base document of NEPAD, whose framework was adopted at the 2001 Lusaka OAU Summit Meeting of African Heads of State and Government, and which was finalised by the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee at its meeting in Abuja, Nigeria in October 2001. Among other things, this founding document said:

"This New Partnership for Africa's Development is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction, that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development and, at the same time, to participate actively in the world economy and body politic. The Programme is anchored on the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world.

"The poverty and backwardness of Africa stand in stark contrast to the prosperity of the developed world. The continued marginalisation of Africa from the globalisation process and the social exclusion of the vast majority of its peoples constitute a serious threat to global stability...

"We are convinced that an historic opportunity presents itself to end the scourge of underdevelopment that afflicts Africa. The resources, including capital, technology and human skills, that are required to launch a global war on poverty and underdevelopment, exist in abundance and are within our reach.

"What is required to mobilise these resources and to use them properly, is bold and imaginative leadership that is genuinely committed to a sustained human development effort and the eradication of poverty, as well as a new global partnership based on shared responsibility and mutual interest.

"Across the continent, Africans declare that we will no longer allow ourselves to be conditioned by circumstance. We will determine our own destiny and call on the rest of the world to complement our efforts. There are already signs of progress and hope...

"The New Partnership for Africa's Development seeks to build on and celebrate the achievements of the past, as well as reflect on the lessons learned through painful experience, so as to establish a partnership that is both credible and capable of implementation. In doing so, the challenge is for the peoples and governments of Africa to understand that development is a process of empowerment and self-reliance. Accordingly, Africans must not be wards of benevolent guardians; rather they must be the architects of their own sustained upliftment...

"The New Partnership for Africa's Development centres on African ownership and management. Through this programme, African leaders are setting an agenda for the renewal of the continent. The agenda is based on national and regional priorities and development plans that must be prepared through participatory processes involving the people. We believe that while African leaders derive their mandates from their people, it is their role to articulate these plans and lead the processes of implementation on behalf of their people.

"The programme is a new framework of interaction with the rest of the world, including the industrialised countries and multilateral organisations. It is based on the agenda set by African peoples through their own initiatives and of their own volition, to shape their own destiny."

Questions we must answer

Based directly on these extracts from the 2001 founding document of NEPAD, these are some of the questions we must pose to ourselves as Africans:

• Have we in fact succeeded to develop a common vision and a firm and shared conviction throughout Africa about the future of our Continent?
• What steps have we taken to determine our own destiny, ensuring that we are not wards of benevolent guardians, but architects of our sustained upliftment?
• What programmes have we put in place to respond to the pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place our countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development?
• Are these programmes, if they exist, based on national and regional priorities and development plans prepared through participatory processes involving the people?
• What initiatives have we taken to ensure that our Continent and peoples in fact participate actively in the world economy and body politic, to end the continuing marginalisation of Africa from a globalising world?
• What have we done to ensure that NEPAD actually serves as a new framework of interaction between Africa and the rest of the world, including the industrialised countries and multilateral organisations, causing the interventions of the rest of the world with regard to our Continent to complement our efforts, which are based on an agenda we have set voluntarily and at our own initiative?

As we prepared the comprehensive NEPAD programme, we had to take a hard and objective look at the global political-economy, to assess Africa's actual and evolving place within this system, at all times resisting the comfort of any delusion about a world loyal to the principle and objective of summum bonum - the greatest good.

Chastised by our life experiences, we knew that our Continent could not and would not win its rightful place within this self-centred globalising world merely by appealing to the ethical principle of human solidarity, critically important as it is, and immanent as it is in the African worldview - our Weltanschauung as expressed, for instance, in the concept of ubuntu.

Africa and the world

This meant that we had to answer the strategic question, objectively - what is Africa's place within the global political-economy, which makes it an important, major and inalienable part of the interlocking jigsaw that constitutes contemporary human society!

Responding to this question, the 2001 NEPAD founding, base document made the bold statement that - "Africa's place in the global community is defined by the fact that the continent is an indispensable resource base that has served all humanity for so many centuries."

On the face of it, this statement which asserts Africa's critical place in the global chain of development that enhances human welfare, suggests that NEPAD, strangely, sought to argue that our Continent should continue to serve as a source of the raw materials without which the manufacture of tradable goods is not possible!

However, the NEPAD founding document went on to explain what the assertion means that Africa is an indispensable resource base that has served all humanity for many centuries. It identified and disaggregated this resource base, which constitutes the objective material base for the fundamental transformation of our Continent for the benefit of the millions of our working people, as being composed of:

• Component I: the rich complex of mineral, oil and gas deposits, the flora and fauna, and the wide unspoiled natural habitat, which provide the basis for mining, agriculture, tourism and industrial development in Africa;
• Component II: the ecological lung provided by the continent's rainforests, and the minimal presence of emissions and effluents that are harmful to the environment, a global public good that benefits all humankind;
• Component III: the palaeontological and archaeological sites containing evidence of the origins of the earth, life and the human race, and the natural habitats containing a wide variety of flora and fauna, unique animal species and the open uninhabited spaces that are a feature of the continent; and,
• Component IV: the richness of Africa's culture and its contribution to the variety of the cultures of the global community.

As the NEPAD founding document said, these distinguishing features of African reality have, in the past, served to benefit societies and peoples outside our Continent, at the expense of the African masses. It argued that as opposed to all false starts in the past, the command post we must occupy to achieve the Renaissance of our Continent must enable us to take ownership of our resource base, and use it for the benefit of the African peoples.

Fundamentally, it argued for the construction of such relations among ourselves, and the restructuring of such relations with the rest of the world, as would end the alienation and expatriation of the extraordinarily rich African patrimony.

It therefore argued that the resource base it defined is the material base on which we would base our historic effort to ensure that no longer do we remain wards of benevolent guardians, dependent on aid and condescending goodwill, should be African owned.

As we regained ownership of our patrimony, so would the rest of the world be obliged to accept the reality that, objectively, inter-dependence must define its relations with our Continent, contrary to a relationship built over half-a-millennium of slavery, imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism, which obliged the African masses to accept that they were dependent and subservient underlings.

Picasso's creativity & Africa

Early in 2006, the Standard Bank Gallery in central Johannesburg hosted the exciting exhibition, "Picasso and Africa", at which 84 works of the outstanding artist's creations were exhibited, thanks to collaboration between the Gallery and other South African institutions with the Picasso Museum in Paris.

The only other Picasso exhibition in Africa had taken place in Dakar, Senegal, 34 years before, in 1972. On that historic occasion, the outstanding Africanist, Senegalese President Leopold Sedar Senghor, a friend of Picasso, a poet, a prominent African intellectual, a leading proponent of the theory of "negritude", paid tribute to Pablo Picasso by characterising him as an artist "who, like the ancient Mediterraneans and black Africans, used analogical images, form-symbols, both to express his inner vision and make it known."

During the first decade of the 20th century, as he developed as an artist, Pablo Picasso paid visits to the now famous Museum of Mankind in Paris. He described the Museum at that time as a dingy, musty place located in an equally dingy and musty neighbourhood. Nevertheless, despite this reality and an overwhelming disagreeable odour inside and outside the Museum, he felt drawn to the Museum of Mankind, which he visited a number of times. What, in fact, had caught his mind and his eye was the African sculptures and masks displayed in the Museum.

In this context, the "Wikipedia" website says: "During this time the French empire was expanding into Africa, and African artifacts were being brought back to Paris museums. The press was abuzz with exaggerated stories of cannibalism and exotic tales about the African kingdom of Dahomey (Benin). Also talked about was the mistreatment of Africans in the Belgian Congo with Joseph Conrad's popular book Heart of Darkness. It was natural therefore in this climate of African interest that Picasso would look towards African artifacts as inspiration for some of his work."

Whether Picasso's interest in the indigenous African art displayed at the Museum of Mankind was "natural" or not we do not know. What we know is that after his exposure to this cultural treasure, Picasso spoke unashamedly of how this African art had turned him into the unique artist he became.

Among other things he said: "I have felt my strongest artistic emotions when suddenly confronted with the sublime beauty of sculptures executed by the anonymous artists of Africa...These works of a religious, passionate, and rigorously logical art are the most powerful and most beautiful things the human imagination has ever produced..."

Component IV of the founding NEPAD document refers to "the richness of Africa's culture and its contribution to the variety of the cultures of the global community". Painters seminal to the evolution of the graphic arts, such as Picasso and Matisse, drew on this culture to achieve what Leopold Senghor described as "analogical images, form-symbols, both to express (their) inner vision and make it known."

The challenge of leadership

As happened in Europe from the 18th century onwards, with regard to the relationship between the Egyptian and Greek civilisations, in time, Picasso's originality became disconnected from its African inspiration, enabling Picasso's European creativity to claim complete European inspirational domicile by denying its organic connection to the myriad of things that expressed indigenous African creativity as art.

In the "Appeal to the Peoples of Africa", the founding NEPAD document said: "The leaders of the continent are aware of the fact that the true genius of a people is measured by its capacity for bold and imaginative thinking, and its determination in support of its own development."

The presence of our eminent representatives at Heiligendamm must communicate the message, once again, that Africa's leaders are determined to use their bold and imaginative thinking to take the historic actions that will shape the future of our Continent in favour of the millions of African men and women who are proud to say - I am an African!

National AIDS Conference

Each one of us has a special role to play

The third South African National AIDS Conference, held in Durban this week, bringing together international and local scientists, opinion-makers, activists, care-givers and officials all working in the arena of HIV and AIDS, happens at an important time when South Africans of all sectors have taken two giant leaps.

One, we have restructured and reinvigorated the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) and two, we have adopted the National Strategic Plan for HIV and AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections for 2007-2011. This strategy will promote shared scientific knowledge and integrated approaches to the management of HIV and AIDS and its impact on our continent.

An interaction of scientists, opinion-makers, activist, caregivers and officials is bound to yield rich knowledge and new challenges. It is through such constructive interactions that honest views and genuine partnerships emerge and are consolidated. The multi-sectoral nature of the conference demonstrates the complexity of the disease, the need to take a holistic approach and to also deal with socio-economic issues.

This pandemic has forced us to work together as we recognised that the sum of the whole is bigger than its parts. We are learning that we have to work in new ways and paradigms. We are adapting to the relevant challenges of the day. Changes in our communities affect the practice of religion, culture, medicine, social development, politics, education in schools, economics, and in our sexual conduct, all have had to take into account the reality of HIV and AIDS. However, at a personal level, responsibility and power lies with each and every one of us to change the patterns of transmission and the impact of HIV and AIDS. Each one of us whether HIV negative or positive has a special role to play.

As per the goals of the National Strategic Plan (NSP) we must have activities that we can monitor whose impact we can gauge. There are signs to suggest that the South African HIV and AIDS epidemic has now reached its peak with about 12% of a total population of 46 million estimated to be living with HIV. Some of these infections have not been identified. New infections still occur; many people require treatment, care and support.

Unfortunately, those who do not know their status as a result cannot access treatment when they have to, and have become major sources for the spread of the disease in the general population. We have been pointing out the impact of the pandemic on women, but we must be concerned about the fact that men are less likely to know their status, yet they are the ones who tend to have multiple partners and are less enthusiastic about protected sex. There is a lot that we still do not know about men and need to know hence the importance of the men's sector and the focus on lifestyle changes and testing by men.

A fairly large number of adults and children that have been identified as HIV positive have access to a range of interventions including treatment of opportunistic infections, nutrition, antiretrovirals (ARV), and terminal palliative care. All of which requires us to plan and use our human resource very wisely and optimally. Contrary to many urban legends about South Africa, this country has the largest ARV programme in the world, but it is also true that the estimated need is huge, the scale of the problem requires for us to continue to find innovative ways to quicken the pace of increasing access to health services.

We are also aware that we have to manage our resources in a manner that provides a better health system for all, and to respond to the challenges of building a healthy nation.

We need as suggested by the theme to build consensus, on many fronts, on prevention, treatment, and care. Government is thankful that we have in South Africa reached a consensus on the national response to HIV and AIDS and STIs for the next five years, as contained in the NSP.

Beyond these collective responsibilities, various professional groups in our society have additional specific responsibilities. Traditional leaders have a critical responsibility to enforce the protective traditional practices that promote the health of our people. They also have the responsibility to discourage traditional practices that may not have been harmful in the past, but which, in the present age, enable HIV to spread. In many communities they are the opinion leaders in shaping community social values.

To our traditional healers we say: we encourage you to work with the health care system to heal people who are ill and to facilitate referrals for those who need treatment in clinics and hospitals. We need you to counsel and help people take their treatment and to lead healthy lifestyles.

Health workers, civil servants and caregivers have a specific responsibility to provide evidence-based prevention, treatment, care and support services in partnership with organisations in communities.

Scientists are another professional grouping that has specific responsibilities. It is vital that scientists go beyond conducting scientific studies to working with policy makers to translate evidence into interventions and programmes. They also have to ensure that their research contributes to the monitoring and the evaluation of the National Strategic Plan. We must manage the public announcements on prevention and claims of cure that if not managed properly can send messages that encourage risky behaviour.

South Africa would like to be part of the global networks that do research and contribute to finding solutions. Our scientists also have a responsibility to develop the capacity of the next generation researchers. A successful scientist should be the one who has developed others to do what they are good at. More of our young people must be encouraged to become scientists so they can develop new prevention, treatment and care approaches. South Africa wants to build and has the capability to be part of the global pharmaceutical economy.

We also have skills to help our country to cope with task of caring for millions of vulnerable and orphaned children. Our AIDS activists are mobilising in communities; the recent South African Local Government Association conference deliberated on mainstreaming the NSP in municipalities; and the South African media is endorsing it.

Through the Inter-Ministerial Committee, government will continue to give guidance on the implementation of this national plan. Many South Africans now know about the ambitious targets of halving the rate of new infections and covering 80% of identified HIV positive individuals with appropriate services during the strategic plan period.

We shall continue to support research both to improve our service delivery systems and approaches and to look for better prevention and treatment options. We have identified a set of measurable indicators by which to monitor progress with implementation.

The monitoring and evaluation framework of the strategic plan allows for alignment with relevant regional and international commitments, and it allows for periodic surveys, reviews and regular surveillance. We have a broad sense of the required financial resources. Serious discussions have been held with government and business around this matter.

A detailed costing study is underway, and we shall return to these major players with a more specific request and our development partners and major foundations will be guided to a defined financial gap. Capacities to spend as well as the risk management mechanisms will need to be enhanced.

This is a three-year social mobilisation programme, a critical element of which is communicating the details of the plan to the general public, while educating South Africans on specific HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support programmes.

Some government departments and civil society sectors are busy with the operationalisation of the NSP for their environments. There are specific targets that we set ourselves for the year 2007, and we must deliver on these activities.

The convergence of scientists, academics, non-governmental organisations, donors and activists this week is an opportunity to share new knowledge and insights in building consensus for prevention, treatment and care.

** Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee and Deputy President of South Africa. This is an edited extract of a speech at the opening of the third South African AIDS Conference, 5 June 2007.

What the media says

Searching together for a better understanding of our reality

Since the draft ANC Strategy and Tactics document was released in February to form the basis of discussion in the structures of the movement, there has been much debate within the organisation on the important matters it raises.

Yet, a piece in The Weekender newspaper on 26 May 2007 by Jacob Dlamini ('On the one hand, it's garbage. On the other it's drivel') is one of a few analytical articles that have appeared in the media on the draft Strategy and Tactics document.

We have been concerned in the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) sub-committee dealing with this issue that, engrossed in the so-called succession debate and details of sector policies, the media had missed a critical document that sets out the framework within which all these other matters will be resolved.

Dlamini does raise interesting questions for conceptual debate. First is the issue of the concept of human development and the assertion in the Strategy and Tactics document that colonialism "interrupted internally-driven advancement of indigenous South African communities along the ladder of human development".

In questioning this, Dlamini misses the point that all communities across the globe have historically developed ways of adapting nature for human comfort and of improving social relations; and they have continually sought to perfect this.

Colonialism interrupted "internally-driven advancement" of African communities, and thus imposed its own means and relations of production. Thus today we have specific forms of these in our country, having been made in the image of the colonial metropolis. How this may have panned out without colonialism - from Mapungubwe and other such civilisations - and what we may have developed ourselves or adapted from others' experiences is a matter of conjecture. Ask the Japanese, Chinese, and others.

As to whether a historical "ladder of human development" is the same as "social ladder" as it applies to socio-economic status in the current situation, we do hope that this speaks for itself.

Secondly, Dlamini raises the question whether the draft document does not contradict itself by referring to class, race and patriarchal relations of power as the roots of conflict, and then arguing that the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) does not "eradicate capitalist relations of production".

If he had read through the whole document intently, he would have realised that the issue is elaborated clearly in the following terms: The roots of conflict "found expression in national oppression based on race; class super-exploitation directed against black workers on the basis of race; and triple oppression of women based on their race, their class and their gender". Thus the NDR "seeks to eradicate the specific relations of production that underpin the national and patriarchal oppression of the majority of South Africans".

Thirdly, Dlamini suggests that the draft document posits race as a biological construct. The actual formulation describes "class, race and patriarchal relations of power" as "distinctive social and biological features". If Dlamini's reading were correct, then we should equally be accused of characterising class as biological. Or should we have referred to "distinctive social and/or biological features" to avoid this kind of misinterpretation?

On a fourth issue, Dlamini suggests that, when social groups are identified as drivers of change because of the social station they occupied under apartheid (Africans in particular and blacks in general), this means they should be "wired to support the ANC's pet project". By "pet project" Dlamini supposedly refers to the cause of social transformation: the new democratic constitution, programmes to deal with the legacy of colonialism, and so on.

The ANC of course claims to be the leader of this process. But it has never been said, for argument's sake, that if you are a worker and an African and you support the PAC or none of the parties in parliament, you are not part of the motive forces of change. Nor would a proposition that if you are part of the forces of change and you are corrupt, then the whole social group to which you belong should be defined out of the equation, stand up to sociological scrutiny. In other words, Dlamini confuses the objective function of class or social status with social consciousness or voting preferences or immediate behavioural traits.

These are the substantive issues Dlamini raises; and he is of course at liberty to differ with what is contained in the draft Strategy and Tactics document. Currently, ANC members are debating these and other issues.

However, if Dlamini honestly wanted to contribute to this discourse, he would have avoided using such words as garbage, drivel, silly and gobbledygook; and isolating one individual, Joel Netshitenzhe, for personal invective.

No one can claim that the draft Strategy and Tactics document is the final word on any matter. Nor do we suggest that it is perfectly drafted to represent the height of intellectualism where Jacob Dlamini is perched. Rational iteration within and outside the structures of the ANC will help us find the best possible articulation of a movement's and a nation's aspirations. A debating style that assumes an air of intellectual superiority as if to say to those in Dlamini's top rung of human development - 'look at me, I'm intellectually better than the ANC' - does not add value to what is a complex process of reflection.

On the other hand, all of us can work together in trying to understand the domestic and global environment in which we have to build a better life for all South Africans.

** Enoch Godongwana is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee and the NEC sub-committee on Political Education, which drafted the Strategy and Tactics discussion document.

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