Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Mr Marius Fransman, signs the IBSA declaration to create jobs

The Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Mr Marius Fransman, has launched, together with India and Brazil in Geneva on 22 November 2010, an IBSA funded South-South Cooperation Program in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to promote global jobs. The India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) trilateral development initiative has been a major catalyst of South-South cooperation. The objectives of the IBSA Fund are to use the capacities of the countries of the South in the United Nations system to assist developing countries in the fight against poverty and hunger. It reflects the view of the IBSA governments that through a spirit of solidarity and non-conditionality developing countries can provide sustainable solutions to their own problems, can change people’s lives and make a positive impact. The purpose of the IBSA funded projects is to promote national ownership for the project, to strengthen local capacity, and to ensure sustainable development.

This gives effect to the 2010 IBSA Heads of States Declaration to promote a job-intensive recovery from the global economic downturn and create a framework for sustainable growth and to support for the ILO Global Jobs Pact. The United Nations honoured the governments of India, Brazil and South Africa in New York by awarding IBSA the 2010 Millennium Development Goals Award for South-South Cooperation for its innovative and successful projects of the Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation (IBSA Fund). This type of cooperation was recognised as “a breakthrough model of South-South technical cooperation”. The Fund, administered by the United Nations, has created success stories in Haiti, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Burundi, Palestine and Cambodia.

Following the launch of the IBSA funded South-South Cooperation Program in Geneva the United Nations heard the first hand experiences of the beneficiaries of IBSA’s project in Guinea Bissau, who have become functionally literate, and gained skills on enhanced agricultural production techniques. This initiative is consistent with the objective of the South African government to enhance the African Agenda. South Africa’s membership of IBSA is a vehicle not only for enhancing our trilateral partnership with India and Brazil, but also as an important pillar for strengthening the influence of the South in global affairs. 

In Guinea-Bissau 4,500 Guinea-Bissau peasants (60% of them women) were trained in agricultural techniques, 95 farmers trained in water management and control for rice production; 150 Guinea-Bissau public servants and other professionals received technical assistance; and of new seed species were distributed and which adapted to the rainy season, a period that in Guinea-Bissau was previously considered not suited to agricultural production.

For more information, please contact the Chief Director for Public Diplomacy, Mr Saul Kgomotso Molobi, on +27 82 940 1647, +27 12 351 0083 or e-mail him at molobisk@dirco.gov.za.

Issued by the Department of International Relations and Co-operation
OR Tambo Building
Private Bag x152
Pretoria, RSA
0001

24 November 2010