Stability in Lesotho and rest of continent will anchor relations with first world
THIS week SA has been exposed to two important events the swearing in of the democratically elected prime minister of Lesotho, Pakalitha Mosisili, and the holding of the Annual World Economic Forum-Southern Africa Development Community African Economic Conference in Durban.
The Maseru ceremony marked the conclusion of a long process aimed at the normalisation of the political situation in Lesotho.
I mention Lesotho to congratulate the sister people of this neighbouring country for what they have done to advance democracy, peace and stability in their country, our region and continent.
Lesotho also indicates what the peoples of our continent are doing practically, in keeping with the commitments Africa has made in the context of both the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).
These African initiatives have put as priorities, issues of democracy, human rights, peace and stability. The governments on our continent have said that we need to realise these goals to create the conditions for us to address the equally urgent question of the eradication of poverty and underdevelopment on our continent.
These are also some of the matters that are being discussed at the current African Economic Summit. Following on the International Nepad Business Conference held in Senegal earlier this year, Durban seeks further to deepen this interaction and the commitment of business to the attainment of the goals of the new partnership.
At its seventh congress held in Johannesburg in 1999 , the Organisation of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU) decided to take action to advance the African development perspective. Among other things it said: "We are mindful of many decades of internal strife and instability brought about by colonialism and military and civilian dictatorships that have subjected millions of African inhabitants to the worst forms of pain, humiliation, poverty, diseases, and violence.
"Political and social stability is a precondition to the development of the continent. The African Renaissance should be biased towards uplifting the conditions of the poor and the marginalised sections of our society. We dream of a new Africa where her children shall be free from unemployment, poverty, deprivation, and socioeconomic marginalisation and inter- as well as intrastate conflict."
Both the AU and the Nepad initiatives have taken exactly the same positions adopted by the OATUU.
The challenge to end the economic marginalisation of Africa, and therefore to attract the necessary resources into our continent to ensure its development, stands at the heart both of the vision of an African Renaissance and Nepad.
Without the achievement of this objective, neither the African Renaissance, nor the AU nor Nepad will succeed. As an integral part of this, Nepad is focused on the establishment of a new partnership between the north and the south to end (the old) relationship between the dominant northern donors and the subservient southern recipients of charity.
The new partnership has to ensure that our continent overcomes the consequences of all policies and prescriptions that have resulted in the further impoverishment of the workers and the poor. It is for this reason that Nepad has focused on a number of specific priority programmes, to give statement to what I have mentioned already.
One of these programmes addresses the matter of capital flows. This includes the debt question, domestic investment, foreign direct investment and official development assistance.
Nepad also focuses on the encouragement of public policies such that the African public and private sectors do not initiate and sustain programmes that lead to the state having to continue these programmes, or save our countries from economic and social collapse, by relying on international loans.
All this includes our obligation to deal with the serious matters of African corruption and the unjustified export of capital by Africans themselves.
One of the most important objectives that Nepad seeks to achieve in this regard is ending the historic situation in which Africa is an exporter of raw materials and an importer of manufactured goods.
Accordingly, the new partnership seeks radically to raise the education and skills levels on our continent. It aims at ending the health crisis in Africa, through a determined offensive against our major diseases, including TB, malaria, STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) and AIDS.
This includes ensuring that we deal with such matters as food security, nutrition, water and sanitation. It is focused on ending the scientific and technological marginalisation of the continent.
Nepad is Africa's response to globalisation. The OATUU Congress said: "Increasingly the world economies are dominated by powerful regional and continental economic blocs. Globalisation of trade has seen a reduction in trade flows from Africa in the past decade." It further said that Africa's organised workers "commit ourselves to the call made by several African leaders to declare the next century the African century'. This is precisely what the AU and Nepad are about.
As the African and global business leaders meet in Durban this week, they will know that they are involved in an historic process to form a new partnership with Africa.
The invitation we extend to all our partners is to participate in a common struggle for the rebirth of a continent. In this epoch-making struggle, unavoidably, we will lose some battles. The masses of the African people are determined that we will not, again, lose the war. Mbeki is president of SA. The full version of his article, written ahead of the conference, will be available on the ANC web journal ANC Today.
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