ANC Today --------------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 7, No. 11, 23-29 March 2007 --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK: * Letter from the President: Water is life - protect our scarce resources * Organisational Review: Introspection and renewal strengthens democratic movement * Quota Debate: Getting the balance right * From the Editor: Notice to our readers --------------------------------------------------------------------- LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Water is life - protect our scarce resources This edition of ANC TODAY is published during our annual National Water Week, which began on 19 March. The day before the publication of this edition, we observed World Water Day, which falls on 22 March, which was so designated by the UN General Assembly (UNGA). The UNGA took this decision to respond to the recommendations of the Rio de Janeiro United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the predecessor of the Johannesburg United Nations World Summit in Sustainable Development (WSSD). A DAM IN SEKHUKHUNE Our Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Lindiwe Hendricks, launched our National Water Week by turning the sod at the site in Limpopo Province on which our country will build the vitally important De Hoop Dam. Speaking on this occasion, on 19 March, she said: "I am very pleased to be here in Sekhukhune and excited to be launching the De Hoop Dam. Today's event is also the launch of our National Water Week for 2007 - a very important week in our calendar because it creates awareness about the importance of water and the many challenges we face in South Africa and indeed across the world in providing water to people. "There is a lot for us to be excited about today as this new dam will transform the lives of the people in this region. It will do so by creating the infrastructure so that we can provide water to communities that have long had to struggle for water; the dam will also create local jobs in the construction of the dam, the related water infrastructure, and in the building of roads; and the dam will mean that mines can be established, which will create additional jobs and opportunities for the local communities... "The importance of this dam is twofold; the first is to supply water to the towns, industries and poorly serviced rural communities in the Sekhukhune District of the Limpopo Province. Secondly, the dam is to supply water to the mines that will help to unlock vast mineral deposits, mainly in the form of platinum group metals found in the region. These metals are at present the largest known unexploited mineral wealth in our country. "The construction of the De Hoop Dam and the associated bulk water distribution infrastructure will cost R5 billion (at present value), and municipalities in the area, supported by the national and provincial government, are preparing to invest an additional R3 billion on infrastructure to treat and distribute potable water to rural domestic and urban users. More than 80,000 people in the project area will benefit by improved domestic water supply when the availability of water from the dam is secured. The planning for the construction of the dam is well underway and construction is to start in the second quarter of this year to see the first impoundment of water during the 2009/2010 rainy season..." DROUGHT & KILLER WAVES As Lindiwe Hendricks spoke, with her audience bathing in the bright sunlight of a summer's day, she would have been acutely conscious of the importance of the theme of this year's National Water Week: "Water is life - protect our scarce resources". This is because during our current rainy season, a significant part of our country is confronted with the reality of drought conditions, occasioned by the absence of rainfall over a period of a number of months. The resultant shortage of water has negatively affected crop estimates for the year and may very well make some important food items unaffordable especially to the poorest in our country. Thus nature continues to tell us everyday that, indeed, water is life! Of course, the water we are talking about is potable water and water for use in agriculture, industry and mining. Unlike countries in the Middle East, for instance, we do not include the great volumes of water in the oceans that wash our shores, the Indian and the Atlantic, among the resources we must tap for these purposes. And yet, on the very day that Lindiwe Hendricks launched our National Water Week, the waters of the Indian Ocean crashed with great fury along the coast of KwaZulu Natal, killing one person and causing enormous damage. The media reported that "Scientists monitoring waves off the South African coast say the highest wave measured during the violent storms off KwaZulu Natal this week was a startling 12m, measured off Richards Bay...Marius Rossouw, of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Cape Town, said the waves in this week's storms were the highest they had measured on the KZN coast in 23 years." The Thekwini Metro City deputy head of fire and disaster management, Mark Te Water, said the damage was "definitely extensive...Some of the damage included beaches and roads that had been washed away, water, electricity, sanitation and telephone services that had been destroyed, while in some instances, buildings had been inundated." Thus, this time from the oceans rather than the skies above, did water remind all of us of its importance to the achievement of the goal of a better life for all our people. MANY VOICES OF WATER The outstanding South African poet and writer, Antjie Krog, communicated this important point differently when, in the Preamble to our 1997 White Paper on a "National Water Policy for South Africa", she wrote: "There is water within us, let there be water with us. Water never rests. When flowing above, it causes rain and dew. When flowing below it forms streams and rivers. If a way is made for it, it flows along that path. And we want to make that path. We want the water of this country to flow out into a network - reaching every individual - saying: here is this water, for you. Take it; cherish it as affirming your human dignity; nourish your humanity. With water we will wash away the past, we will from now on ever be bounded by the blessing of water. "Water has many forms and many voices. Unhonoured, keeping its seasons and rages, its rhythms and trickles, water is there in the nursery bedroom; water is there in the apricot tree shading the backyard, water is in the smell of grapes on an autumn plate, water is there in the small white intimacy of washing underwear. Water - gathered and stored since the beginning of time in layers of granite and rock, in the embrace of dams, the ribbons of rivers - will one day, unheralded, modestly, easily, simply flow out to every South African who turns a tap. That is my dream." Not many of us are familiar with the enormous and sustained effort and the volume of resources needed to realise Antjie Krog's and our dream that water will, one day, unheralded, modestly, easily, simply flow out to every South African who turns a tap, and indeed that one day, all South Africans will have easy and immediate access to a tap that would be ready, at all times, to provide clean life-giving water. POWER, POVERTY AND THE GLOBAL WATER CRISIS The 2006 UNDP Human Development Report, entitled "Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis", is dedicated to the global struggle for access to adequate water and sanitation. The UNDP decided to launch the Report in our country. This took place at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town on 9 November 2006. Speaking at this occasion, the Administrator of the UNDP, Kemal Dervis, said: "This year's Human Development Report - Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis - looks at an issue that profoundly influences progress towards the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals], and human potential more generally. Water is a basic human need and a fundamental human right. Access to water, a simple resource that many in rich countries take for granted, has implications for improving life chances, expanding choice, and the exercise of basic human freedoms. Water for life in the household and water for livelihoods through production are two of the foundations for human development. "The crisis in water for life is the widespread violation of the basic human right to water. One in every six people in the world is denied the right to clean, accessible and affordable water. 2.6 billion people do not have even rudimentary forms of sanitation. That deprivation causes nearly two million avoidable child deaths each year. As the great author Victor Hugo wrote in Les Miserables, 'The sewer is the conscience of the city.' The central message of this year's Report is that the global water crisis is not one of physical scarcity, but one rooted in poverty and inequality... "Here in South Africa, the constitutional right to water has enabled the Government to protect and promote the right to water for every individual. This is amply demonstrated by the policy and legislative frameworks, budget allocations and achievements to date on this critical issue. However, challenges remain...As always, the United Nations Development Programme stands ready to support the Government of South Africa, by sharing our experience gained worldwide and working together to make further progress in an area where South Africa is already a leader." Speaking at the same launch of the Human Development Report, Kevin Watkins, Director and lead Author of the Report, said: "Vaclav Havel once said that politics is not the art of the possible, but the art of imagining the impossible - and then making it happen...For all of us involved in preparing the Report, it is a great privilege to hold this event in a country that has done so much to advance to cause of human development...There are many reasons for those of us working on human development to feel at home in South Africa. "The human development approach is about expanding human freedoms, realising human potential, and overcoming inequalities in life chances rooted in social injustice - in disparities based on gender, race, and other markets for disadvantage. These are themes at the heart of the Freedom Charter, the Bill of Rights adopted by the ANC in the mid-1980s, and - of course - in the South African Constitution. "There are many ways in which South Africa has touched the lives of people beyond your borders. On a purely personal note, I had the great privilege as a student of being taught by Ruth First. She was a brilliant scholar. But above all she, like so many others involved in the struggle against apartheid, Ruth was an ardent advocate for social justice at home and abroad...South African history demonstrates the truth behind the expression 'where there is a will, there is a way'. "In our increasingly prosperous world, we do not lack the financial resources, the technology, or the ingenuity to consign the water and sanitation crisis to its proper place in history books. The poverty, the child deaths, and the gender inequalities which attend this crisis are not inevitable... "Let me conclude by returning to the great lesson that South Africa has taught the world, and to Vaclav Havel's reflection on the art of politics. We need to imagine a world in which no children die because of water and sanitation deficits - and we need the political leadership, the strategies, and the resources to make that world happen." OUR NATIONAL OBJECTIVES The UNDP paid great tribute to our efforts since 1994 to confront the challenge of providing water and sanitation to all our people, when it decided to launch the 2006 Human Development Report (HDR) in our country. The statements made by Kemal Dervis and Kevin Watkins on this occasion, when they referred specifically to what we have done, cannot but serve further to inspire us to accelerate our advance towards the attainment of the goal set in the HDR of universal access to water and sanitation. In this regard, as explained by our Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, and of the greatest importance, we have set the objectives of our National Water Campaign as: * Increased awareness of the processes towards realising the constitutional right of all South Africans to have access to water; * building on existing campaigns around sanitation and hygiene (particularly the "Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene" - WASH - campaign); * ensuring that the cleanliness and the integrity of our water sources and outlets is maintained; * ensuring the long term sustainability of our water resources; * highlighting the crucial link between water and health with the objective of eradicating water-borne diseases and, thereby, reducing child mortality; * empowering communities, especially women, in managing and improving their living conditions; * highlighting the vital interdependence between poverty eradication, socio- economic empowerment and our water resources; * developing an aware and responsible South African society across the demographic spectrum; * supporting the Women in Water, Sanitation and Forestry Awards; * supporting the "Baswa Le Meetse" Awards (Youth in Water Awards); and, * celebrating Water as a source of life. As part of the campaign to educate our people about these important objectives, I believe that it is vital that the nation as a whole is also properly informed about the complex process that ends with the delivery to the citizen of even one drop of clean water. This would increase the level of national awareness about the enormous effort, resources and organisation that go into water harvesting, treatment and purification, delivery, distribution and conservation, as well as the maintenance of our water reservoirs and courses and the extensive infrastructure that delivers water to the citizen. In her introduction to the "National Water Resource Strategy" document, the then Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Ms Buyelwa Sonjica, said: "South Africa is a water-scarce country. Our average annual rainfall is a little more than half of the world average, and much of our country is semi-arid. Across most of the country the potential evaporation is higher than the rainfall. Our land is vulnerable to floods and droughts and all of us have shared the horror of floodwaters sweeping away people, houses and roads. "We have also shared with our farmers and our rural communities the bitter longing for rains that never seem to come. Our water resources are limited and it is essential that we use them efficiently and in the best interests of all our people... "We are not on the point of running out of water, but we have to use our limited water supplies more efficiently and effectively. Water use in South Africa is dominated by irrigation, which accounts for around 62% of all water used in the country. Domestic and urban use accounts for about 27%, while mining, large industries and power generation account for some 8%. Commercial forestry plantations account for a little less than 3% of total use by reducing runoff into rivers and streams. "South Africa's rivers are small in comparison with those in many other countries. The Orange River carries only about 10% of the volume of water flowing down the Zambezi River and about 1% of the flow in the Congo River." WATER IS LIFE - PROTECT OUR SCARCE RESOURCES The central message here is that we have to use our limited water supplies more efficiently and effectively. In this regard, beyond the immediate dictates of our national setting, we must also put into the larger equation serious consideration of the longer-term impact of global warming and climate change. Our celebration of water as a source of life must translate into practical actions aimed at ensuring that we do indeed use our limited water supplies more efficiently and effectively. Among other things this means that all of us, including the branches of the ANC, must join the national campaign to reduce the amount of water lost through leakages in the water infrastructure. We must therefore immediately report any leakage we come across, inside and outside our homes, and insist that the relevant authorities attend to such leakages as a matter of urgency. We must also take it as our daily task save as much water as possible even inside our houses. Big water users, such as agriculture, must also investigate ways and means by which they can reduce water consumption, while supplying their crops with the necessary amount of water required to grow these plants. In this regard, among others we must also fully mobilise all capacities that reside at such institutions as the Agricultural Research Council, as well as draw on international experience, properly to respond the theme of our Water Week: "Water is life - protect our scarce resources". When he spoke at Kirstenbosch, UNDP Administrator, Kemal Dervis, identified some of the principal challenges we face with regard to the provision of water and sanitation. We must respond to the challenge he laid at our feet when he said: "Access to potable water in South Africa is not universal and coverage rates among the poor still vary significantly. Also, South Africa has not yet matched its success in expanding access and reducing inequality in water provision with comparable outcomes in sanitation. The challenge for South Africa, as the Government recognises and is taking steps to address, lies in expanding access and engaging communities in the identification and adoption of the most appropriate and sustainable solutions that respond to environmental and resource constraints." Thabo Mbeki --------------------------------------------------------------------- ORGANISATIONAL REVIEW Introspection and renewal strengthens democratic movement The ANC's capacity for frank introspection and political renewal have helped ensure its growth and development over the last 95 years. This is the basic premise of an 'Organisational Review' discussion document released this week as part of preparations for the ANC's 52nd National Conference in December. It is one of a series of documents, covering various policy areas, that are being distributed to ANC structures to stimulate and guide deliberations over the next few months to inform, firstly, the National Policy Conference in June, and, secondly, the National Conference in December. Arising from a decision of the ANC National General Council in 2005, the discussion document is the outcome of a review process that has placed all ANC structures, processes and systems under the microscope. The document observes that few movements can show such a consistent record of triumph over adversity, spanning a period of almost a century. The ANC now enjoys the overwhelming confidence of the masses as a trusted leader and loyal servant of the people in the ongoing struggle to build a better life for all. "This remarkable success of the movement is not a result of sheer luck. Along the way, major setbacks and obstacles had to be overcome by men and women who were prepared to make supreme sacrifices to turn the ANC into what it is today. The movement has consciously developed unique features that have enabled it to overcome all the challenges it has encountered in its history." These features are the main source of the ANC's enormous capacity for internal resilience and self-renewal: "They are its internal defence mechanism that has seen the movement grow from strength to strength, always able to adapt to radical changes in the domestic and global environment. The ANC has been able to adapt to change while maintaining its primary mission and character as the principal mobiliser and unifier of the motive forces and a loyal servant of the people. The interests of the people, especially the working class and the poor, constitute the starting point and fundamental goal of ANC policy." The approach in the discussion document is meant to build on the ability of the ANC to adapt to changing conditions while remaining loyal to its principal objectives. The document analyses the strengths and weaknesses of all ANC components, beginning with the membership and going through each level of the organisation - branch, sub-region/zone, region, province and national. It also looks at the Women's League and Youth League, and at the organisation of veterans. The document discusses the role and operation of the Alliance and mass democratic movement, and the ANC's relationship with broader civil society. A number of over-arching issues, covering key organisational programmes and activities, are also examined. These include political education, management of governance, policy development and evaluation, political communication and international work. It also discusses issues like discipline and ethical conduct, funding, election of leadership and organisational management. For each area, based on an assessment of strengths and weaknesses, a number of recommendations are suggested for consideration by ANC structures. Some of these recommendations restate previous decisions that have yet to be implemented, or urge that some existing practices be intensified and improved. Others, if adopted, will require constitutional or other structural changes. Among the recommendations suggested in the document are that: * the full amount of the membership fee should be allocated to branches; * the term of office of the Branch Executive Committee (BEC) should be extended to two years; * consideration should be given to expanding the role of the sub-region to coordinate organisational work in branches and oversee the work of the ANC in local municipalities; * the composition of the National Executive Committee (NEC) should be reviewed to enable members to do more work in branches and sectors, ensure members are drawn from the various sections of the motive forces and centres of authority, and reflect an appropriate gender balance and generational mix; * the ANC should set up a Veterans' League to organise all members over 60 years of age with at least 40 years of uninterrupted service to the struggle; * the ANC Political School and Policy Institute be established as a priority; * all cadres elected into constitutional structures and those deployed to the state, the economy, the arena for the battle of ideas and civil society need to go through political classes; * the deployment of premiers and mayors be finalised after consultation with the relevant constitutional structure in the province and region; * the prerogative of the President, premiers and mayors to appoint and release members of cabinet, executive councils and mayoral committees is exercised after consultation with the leadership of the organisation; * the National Policy Conference should also be a consultative body for the development of the ANC election manifesto, subject to final ratification and adoption by the NEC; * the ANC should champion the introduction of a comprehensive system of public funding of representative political parties in the different spheres of government and civil society organisations. This includes putting in place an effective regulatory architecture for private funding of political parties and civil society groups to enhance accountability and transparency to the citizenry. The document concludes by saying: "Whatever views we may have on the specific proposals that are being made, the ultimate objective should be to ensure that the movement becomes even stronger as it approaches its Centenary so that it deal with new challenges during its Second Century of its existence. This is the spirit within which all the proposals are being made. We hereby invite all cadres to join in the festival of ideas about the fundamental challenge of strengthening our movement so that it remains a trusted leader, loyal servant of the people and an agent for change." MORE INFORMATION: Organisational Review Discussion Document, March 2007 http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/discussion/2007/review.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- QUOTA DEBATE Getting the balance right The ANC, and indeed the whole Alliance, has been grappling with the problem of the contradictions of unequal gender relations for a long time. It can no longer afford the luxury of treating gender contradictions in an ad hoc fashion, as the litmus test of democracy and real transformation of society is the emancipation of women and the resolution of unequal power relations between men and women in all spheres of society. As we reflect on the transformation of our society in general and women's emancipation and gender equality in particular, we will need to debate the proposal of setting a minimum quota of 50% women in all decision making structures. The access of a sizeable number of women to decision-making structures facilitates their participation in those structures and contributes to, and has a positive impact on, the transformation of unequal power relations in the institution itself and in society as a whole. Evidence shows that mechanisms to act as facilitators for access of women into these positions are necessary, as entry is neither easy nor automatic. While transformation of gender relations should not depend on women, in patriarchal societies women are critical in bringing about that change. This is not to reduce their role in the sphere of decision-making but to recognise the additional burden that society has placed on them. The ANC and Alliance should therefore understand the 50/50 approach as part of the struggle against patriarchy and the process towards 'engendered democracy' and the transformation agenda. Numbers are only a small part of the arsenal we use in our multi-pronged struggle for the complete eradication of unequal power relations between men and women. As attitudes tend to lag far behind everything else quantitative changes influence and play a role in achievement of qualitative changes. Empirical evidence and lived experience in the ANC and in South Africa shows that access and participation of a sizeable number of women in decision-making structures has been critical for the struggle against patriarchy and the transformation of society. Women's entry for instance into the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) and the cabinet, traditionally male domains, has not only changed the 'face' of the NEC and cabinet, but has fostered, in many different ways, gender consciousness and a move towards engendered policies. These women have contributed to putting women and gender related matters at the centre of the ANC and cabinet discourse and agenda and thus strengthened the struggle for women's emancipation and gender equality. The same can be said of women elsewhere, for example in parliament. Some of these women have grabbed the instruments of power and used them to change society while simultaneously changing the very power and its male definitions and use. So, women do not and should not appropriate these institutional power positions, but have to change them. Democracy and democratic institutions do not automatically facilitate the access of women into the centres of power. Women tend to do "a disappearing act" when it comes to being elected into positions. This is mainly because of socialisation of both women and men, which never assigns women the role of decision-makers and leaders in society. Until such time that biological differences such as race and sex become "non issues" for deciding leadership, democratic organisations have to use affirming mechanisms such as quotas to facilitate entry and to nudge the mindset to change. Besides, the presence of a critical mass of women in the NEC and any other leadership structure of the liberation movement is a prerequisite for their participation. For that reason, mechanisms to ensure women's entry into decision-making spheres are necessary. Literature and international experiences have shown that without such mechanisms, women will forever be confined to the private sphere. The threshold of one-third has been proven internationally as the point at which women and indeed marginalised groups are able to make an effective contribution. The ANC has been a trailblazer on access of women to decision-making levels. This is directly attributable to women themselves, who in their own right have long freed themselves from the constraints of socialisation and stereotyping. It has also been due to the decisive measures that the ANC has taken, including the one-third quotas. But now the ANC and the country are past the 30% and have to get the numbers right at 50%. But the 50/50 balance must not end up defeating the whole gender transformation agenda by, for instance: * 'ghettoising' gender by focusing only on numbers; * relegating women's activities in the leadership to only those areas dealing with practical gender interests; * making wrong assumptions that women are a homogenous entity and ignoring their multiple identities and other forms of oppression visited upon some of them, such as class exploitation; * failing to put gender transformation into the main agenda of change in society and making it the responsibility of women alone to address; * creating an opportunistic group of women who use the quota as a stepping stone for their personal rise without any commitment to gender transformation; * creating an elite who, when in leadership, buy into the 'patriarchal agenda' in their attitude to women and gender-related matters. It is therefore imperative that the quota system and 50/50 is not vulgarised either for setting women up or for opportunistic agendas. Clear mechanisms for the implementation of the quota will have to be set up beyond just a clause in the Constitution. Cadre development is necessary for all our cadres, men and women, to understand the complex intersection of class, race, gender and other contradictions and the necessary struggles for their resolution. It is clear that there is a critical interrelationship and interdependence between access of women and mechanisms for such access, their participation in decision-making and gender transformation. Patriarchy is sustained even in the high echelons of power such as the NEC, a democratic state and in a society like ours. It may take subtle forms and different variations mediated by other divisions like class, race, sexual orientation and so on. The ANC Strategy and Tactics and all its policies and programmes will therefore have to address the coexistence of patriarchy and democracy in our country for us to lead the struggle for its complete destruction. We cannot and should not even try to 'manage' it; we have to destroy it. At this stage, we can at least get the numbers right, at 50/50, as we continue in the protracted struggle for complete transformation of all unequal power relations in our society and a better life for all. ** Thenjiwe Mtintso is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee. This is an edited extract of an article that appears in Umrabulo 28, the latest edition of the ANC's political discussion journal. --------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM THE EDITOR Notice to our readers In 2001, the State University of New York (SUNY) Press published a book entitled "Whiteness Just Isn't What It Used To Be: White Identity in a Changing South Africa". The book was written by Dr Melissa E Steyn, who is currently teaching at the University of Cape Town as an Associate Professor. ANC TODAY will publish a very belated review of this important book in a fortnight, in Vol 7 No 13. We believe that this book makes an important contribution to the debate in which we need to engage, relating to the challenge "to resolve the national question", and therefore the obligation to take all necessary steps to construct a non-racial society. We are confident that the review of the book, "Whiteness...", by Dr Steyn, will provide a commentary that will make a constructive contribution to a national discussion that is long overdue and can no longer be avoided. It seems obvious to us that we cannot build the united national movement for a non-racial society that we need if we do not take deliberate action to develop this united national movement to defeat the cancer of racism that continues to gnaw at the very innards of a South African nation that is still going through its process of birth, out of the womb of a society that is burdened by the fact that it had racism as its parents. Dr Steyn begins the Preface to her book with a quotation from Minnie Bruce Pratt's "Identity: Skin Blood Heart". We refer to this quotation because it indicates the depth of the challenge we will all face as we play our part in a complex and dynamic and perhaps painful process of intellectual engagement with one another, which will, inevitably, also have to deal with the explosive mixture of Skin Blood Heart. The quotation reads: "[M]ore like a snake shedding its skin than like death: the old constriction is sloughed off with difficulty, but there is expansion...some growth, and some reward for struggle and curiosity. Yet, if we are women who have gained privilege by our white skin or our Christian culture, but who are trying to free ourselves as women in a more complex way, we can experience this change as loss. Because it is: the old lies and ways of living, habitual, familiar, comfortable, fitting us like our skin, were ours." --------------------------------------------------------------------- This issue of ANC Today is available from the ANC web site at: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2007/at11.htm To receive ANC Today free of charge by e-mail each week go to: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/subscribe.html To unsubscribe yourself from the ANC Today mailing list go to: http://lists.anc.org.za/mailman/listinfo/anctoday