Your Honour, The Governor of Alberta,
President and Vice Chancellor,
Friends of Africa,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen.

Historical development

It is an honour and pleasure for us to address this august gathering today. It was indeed the citizens of Canada and the rest of the world who pledged solidarity and supported decolonisation struggles in Africa. The struggle against apartheid South Africa, which took the longest, and was the most protracted, saw the biggest mobilization by the anti-apartheid movement. It is thanks to all of you that today I can stand before you as the democratically elected representative of the people of South Africa. For it occurred to you that as long as the system of apartheid crime against humanity existed and was practiced in South Africa, your own humanity was violated.

Kwame Nkrumah, one of the finest sons of Africa, happily proclaimed on the 6th of March 1959 to the whole world that: "the Independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of the African continent". Immediately, the beating of drums sent this message across rivers, mountains, forests and plains. The people heard and acted. One after another, new African states came into being, and above the world horizon, loomed the African personality. African statesmen went to the United Nations; Africans proudly wore the ancient regalia of their ancestral land; Africans stood and spoke for Africans.

This spirit of optimism in the continent quickly gave way to the gloomy Cold War era, with the emergence of military coups and dictatorship and one party states. Resources that were supposed to feed the children of Africa were plundered and pillaged, some diverted to foreign banks by the selfish African elite. The continent was gripped by the depressing state of conflicts, poverty and disease. Women were treated as beasts of burden, with wood on the head, child on the back and a bucket of water in hand. Children died of malnutrition and preventable diseases, malaria, tuberculosis, measles and HIV/AIDS, to name but a few. It was dubbed the hopeless continent.

Fortunately, as the century was coming to a close, there was a critical core of progressive leadership on the continent who refused to accept these conditions as the defining feature of our continent. They know and are backed by history and scientists that Africa is the cradle of humanity and has given humanity her civilization.

They are strengthened by the knowledge that Africa has the works of art that date back thousands of years. Our fine arts encompass the varied artistic creations of the Nubians and the Egyptians, the Benin Hronzes of Nigeria and the intricate sculptures of the Makonde of Tanzania and Mozambique. They also know of the evolution of religious thought made by the Christians of Ethiopia and the Muslims of Nigeria.

They have seen the architectural monuments in their continent as represented by the giant sculptured stones of Aksum in Ethiopia, the Egyptian sphinxes and pyramids, the Tunisian city of Carthage, and the Zimbabwean ruins, as well as the legacy of the ancient universities of Alexandria in Egypt, Fez of Morocco and Timbuktu of Mali.

These Africans have chosen to act together to change the lot of their continent. And insist on taking the destiny of their continent into their own hands. They are hard at work to actualise the dream of Marcus Garvey, Du Bois, Abdul Nasser, Oliver Tambo, Amilcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba and Nkrumah of African Unity and Prosperity.

Contemporary realities

Having taken this momentous decision, we expect nothing less than to liberate the continent from the oppressive legacy of slavery, poverty, diseases, backwardness, underdevelopment and marginalisation.

Coming from the liberation movement, the African National Congress, that has been the integral part of this struggle, we have for decades waged the principled, unrelenting and protracted struggle for the right of the people to govern themselves - The People shall Govern.

Africans in many parts of the continent have moved to embrace good governance such as multi-party democracies with regular elections for the people themselves to choose a government of their choice. A number of African countries have undergone this democratic process of testing the will of the people. We must remain vigilant to ensure that this process is irreversible.

Nevertheless, there are still problems confronting the continent of Africa such as political instability in Zimbabwe and Madagascar and conflicts in countries like Angola, DRC, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Liberia and Somalia. These and many other hot-spot areas are receiving the immediate attention of the continental leadership. Committed to changing the negative perception of their continent, the leadership of Africa has taken two major decisions to respond to the challenges they are facing; these are the formation of the African Union and the blueprint for the continental economic revival programme.

The Organisation of African Unity, which has served the continent well; commited in fostering unity and solidarity as well completing the decolonisation will be transformed into the African Union, which will be better placed to respond to the challenges of globalisation. The African Union will deal comprehensively with the questions of economic, political and social challenges of the new era.

The African Union will also deal practically with issues such as:

• Greater unity and solidarity and the socio-economic integration of the continent;
• Acceleration of the political and socio-economic integration of the continent;
• Promotion of peace, security and stability on the continent;
• Promotion of democratic principles and institutions of popular participation and good governance;
• Promotion, protection and prevention of the violation of human and peoples' rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and human rights instruments; and
• The promotion of co-operation in all fields of human activity to raise the living standard of African people.

NEPAD

In taking the continent forward, in their last OAU Summit in Lusaka, African leaders also adopted an economic blueprint for Africa's recovery, namely the New Partnership of Africa's Development, to be better able to respond to the challenge and changing international environment. The New Partnership for Africa's Development is a comprehensive programme that deals inter-alia with Peace Security, Democracy and Political Governance, Economic and Corporate Governance and Sub-regional and Regional Approaches to Development.

These documents can be easily accessed through the a South African Government website: www.dfa.gov.za. We have few documents that will be distributed tonight.

This ambitious economic development programme is designed by Africans to respond to unique African challenges. It derives its legitimacy from ownership and its success to a large measure, hinges on Africans assuming leadership of the process with the international community joining in partnership with African countries. This is not a foreign imposed programme but a home-grown response to our difficult development challenges, hence it will succeed.

We need to work towards changing the negative perception of our continent as a "risky continent". In this regard, we need to deal with conflicts in a comprehensive, emphatic and expeditions manner. Of importance is the peaceful settlement of conflicts and the prevention of new ones, which, if left unresolved, breed poverty, displacement, diseases, despair and refugee crises. Accordingly, issues such as the upholding of economic and political good governance, respect for human and people rights as well as respecting the right of people to choose their representatives without fear are paramount.

Through NEPAD we have also agreed to invest in our people our most important resource. In this regard, provision of primary health facilities is imperative. Only healthy nations can address the challenges we have set for ourselves. Human Resources Development through education, vocational training and mentoring is important. We look up to Alberta University and Canadians to help in these areas.

As we deal with the issues of HRD, it is important that we address communicable diseases, malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. With regard to HIV/AIDS, we must move from a premise that there is no cure for AIDS. It is therefore, imperative that we educate our people to prevent this terrible disease from spreading. We must also put many resources to deal with opportunistic infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis diarrhoea, meningitis, throat fungal infection, etc. As the South African Government, we are engaged with pharmaceutical companies on the question of affordability of drugs and infrastructure development to help deal with anti-retroviral drugs.

We also need to improve on our agricultural output. If we cannot feed ourselves, there is no future or hope for the continent. Africa is a predominantly agrarian continent and most of their inhabitants eke out a living from the land, it is important that developed countries work with us to address the absence of the necessary agrarian technology as well as value added agricultural products for export of our agro industry.

We also need a reliable energy supply in order to expand our manufacturing base. We need the development of regional electricity grids. Regionally, we will mobilise necessary resources to deal with our energy needs but we need partners to work with us. Equally important is pulling our resources to deal with the provision of potable water.

The NEPAD's Market Access Initiative deals with market access for the products of African countries. It also deals with the issue of the imbalances of international trade, which favours the developed countries at the expense of the least and developing African countries. For it remains a shame and inexcusable that $1 billion dollars a day is used to subsidise the farmers of developed countries. It has been established that a $300 billion annual subsidy is given to European farmers. This is four times more than the money spent on development assistance to all developing countries. This situation must not be allowed to continue.

It has been estimated that Africa now only accounts for a mere 2% of the world trade, down from 7.4% in 1948. The human consequences of this development are profound. In the Southern African region alone, 78 million people live in poverty. Opening of markets of developed countries is not an act of charity but this also stands to benefit them. A developing African country with properly educated and a well-fed population represents a market of 600 million people - the developed countries only ignore this to their peril.

NEPAD is also building partnerships between African countries to deal with the problem of infrastructure development. Partnerships between African countries, the developed countries as well as multilateral institutions, will lead to the building of much needed rail, air and road infrastructure. To illustrate the dearth of infrastructure in the continent, a person from the West Africa can't place a direct call to the Southern African region, he has been re-routed from France. This also goes for air transport. Clearly, unless infrastructure is laid to connect African countries, the huge potential for inter-African trade will be lost.

The NEPAD programme has also highlighted the importance of industrialisation and modernisation, which would help kick-start development of the continent. Equally important, is the area of Information and Communication Technology. In order for Africa to latch onto information revolution, which is driving the process of globalisation process forward, ICT infrastructure development is critical. A need to double teledensity by 2005 has been identified which could mean affordable 2 phones per 100 people.

Another principal and perennial challenge facing our continent is the albatross of unsustainable debt repayment. It is estimated that Africa, for the next fifty years will be paying debt to developed countries and their private institutions. For the next fifty years, important resources, which could be used for education, health and infrastructure, will be diverted to pay debts. The African debt is unsustainable. None should condemn the future generation to this calamitous position. Once more, a HIPC Initiative must be broadened and deepened to address this problem. The Capital Flow Initiative of NEPAD is dealing with this problem. We look up to friendly Canada and her people to work in Kanananskis for an African Plan, that at its core addresses the indebtedness of African countries.

Equally promising though, which must be backed by concrete action, is the need to increase Official Development Assistance. The Capital Flow Initiative is working seriously to determine the criterion which will help countries to better manage and productively use this assistance.

Central to the NEPAD is gender mainstreaming in all programmes. The question of gender equality is at the heart of NEPAD. More than half of the population in Africa is made up of women. It remains critical therefore, that the women who till the land, who are responsible for nutrition of their families, women who constitute a critical mass in Africa, should be involved in the programme of economic renewal of the African continent.

It is important, that the intelligentsia is involved in popularising and engaging NEPAD. The leadership as elected representatives of the people have given leadership; it is now up to the agents of social change, like you to take up the challenge.

Why this initiative now

Many previous illustrious initiatives were not implemented. There are many responses for this, such as: the Cold War paradigm; the lack of capacity to implement these initiatives; as well as the absence of political cohesion in the continent and internationally.

The time has never been more ripe to move forward to the concrete implementation of the lofty ideas we all developed to help Africa deal with the terrible legacy and burden of underdevelopment. This conference today is an ample demonstration of the fertile environment I am referring to. We all agree, as we surely must, that it is time to move from words to action to help give re-birth to Africa with hope, peace and prosperity.

Let us prove that Herodotus was right when he said: Ex Africa semper aliquid novi! (Something new always comes out of Africa). Out of this birth, must necessarily come a new Africa with a brighter tomorrow.

Despite the catastrophic and barbaric terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September last year, we remain positive of the success of the New Partnership. The New Partnership driven and inclusive of the peoples of the continent and those like you in the Diaspora and friends of Africa cannot and will not fail.

To the Government of Canada we want to encourage you, through the G8 to continue your strong support to ensure a plan for Africa is a substantives response to NEPAD. In particular, we want to encourage you to continue to support the initiatives like the Canada-Africa Governance Programme, in which the Province of Alberta participates.

To the civil society, we recognise and appreciate the valuable efforts already underway by Cause Canada that works for peace and conflict management and also the Africa/Canada Partnership Programme for Africa, which we are told has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Price. We also want to recognise the invaluable role played by universities and colleges across Canada working with Africa in areas of agro-forestry, teacher education and health care.

To the private sector, the continent of Africa is endowed with the human capital, mineral wealth and unlimited opportunities for trade, investment and partnership as proposed in the NEPAD programme. Other countries are taking advantage of this burgeoning market; it is imperative that you are not left behind. The opportunities abound in Africa.

We are here today in Canada because you joined us as the anti-apartheid movement, the progressive forces as well as Government to defeat apartheid. Now we are facing an even bigger battle of ensuring that Africa is pulled out of this morass of underdevelopment and backwardness. As you heroically showed the way and leadership before, history is calling on you to rise to the challenges again.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Foreign Affairs
22 March 2002