Statement by Deputy Minsiter Aziz Pahad Senior Officials Meeting of the Ministrial Meeting of the Co-ordinating Bureau in Preparation for the XIII Summit, Durban 27 April 2002

Distinguished delegates,

Last year we celebrated the 40th anniversary of our Movement. Today South Africans are celebrating the 8th anniversary of our democracy.

It is therefore a great honour and privilege for South Africa to host the Ministerial Meeting of the Co-ordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement in preparation for the XIII Summit on our Freedom Day.

The fact that we are meeting in Durban, South Africa is a remarkable testimony to the reality that when NAM is united and determined to achieve our objectives, we can win, despite many challenges and opposition, from powerful vested interests. Today SA is a democracy because of the solidarity of NAM. The spirit of collective self-reliance and relations of mutual co-operation which played such an important role in destroying colonialism and apartheid must drive us to meet the challenges of today.

This meeting is timely because we live in an era of profound change characterised by globalisation. The 114 Member Countries of NAM representing two thirds of the World’s population can not be spectators or victims as this process unfolds.

At the last Summit, our Heads of State pledged that "Durban must mark the turning point where the formerly dispossessed, the majority, enter into their inheritance".

We must honestly and frankly ask ourselves "have we entered into our "inheritance" Sadly since the summit, things have got worse and not better.

We are relentlessly moving from a world which once was marked by governments with control over resources to one where little wealth is common or public. We live in a world where inequality of wealth and opportunities are growing rapidly we. We are still faced with the reality that :

Nearly 1,3 billion people do not have access to clean water; one in seven children of primary school age is out of school; an estimated 1.3 billion people live on incomes of less than 1$ a day, half of the world’s population are estimated to live below 2$ a day.

It is estimated that a mere 4% levy on the world’s 225 most richest people would enable us to provide adequate food, safe water and sanitation, basic education, basic health care and reproductive health care for all of the developing countries.

The growing inequalities between countries is even more stark – one fifth of the world’s people living in the highest-income countries have:

86% of the world’s GDP
the top fifth, controls 82% of the world’s export markets
OECD countries with 19% of the global population have 71% of the global trade in goods and services, 58% of foreign direct investment and 91% of all Internet users.

Today monopolisation is taking place at an unprecedented pace. Nobody is immune, not even the large multinational companies. For example: of the Fortune 500 top companies of 1980, 60% of them had disappeared by 1994 (either bankrupt or merged with other companies).

The global bond market by 1999 had reached $34 trillion. This exceeds not only the total capitalisation of the world’s stock markets ($27.5 trillion in 1999) but also the total GDP of all the worlds’ countries ($30.1 trillion in 1999).

The worlds foreign exchange markets was estimated to be over $400 trillion in 1998, today it is much greater.

This phenomenal increase in monopolisation and the enormity and volatility of the foreign exchange and bond markets has a profound effect on all our economies.

The Report of the Bank for International Settlements (1998) notes that:

"Inflows of International Capital (into the emerging markets) in large part in the form of short-term bank credit, rose from virtually zero in 1989 to a peak of almost $170 billion in 1996, to be followed recently by major outflows. Coping with these swings have been enormously difficult …. ".

The report of the ad-hoc Panel of Economists to the Durban Summit noted that "the international agenda is dominated by the concern of developed countries to greater freedom for foreign investors and for capital flows and the export of their goods and services recommended that the South creates "institutional mechanisms … to deal with the task of global economic surveillance and management". It further recommended that the South Agenda must give serious attention to "measures and mechanisms to control and moderate short term and speculative international capital flows to reduce vulnerability and instability".

It also called for the establishment of new policies and mechanisms for the Bretton Woods Institutions.

Your deliberations will be looking at what progress we have made in implementing these and other recommendations emanating from the XIIth Summit.

Distinguished delegates

We are also experiencing a weakening of democracy and politics. Power is much more diffuse than in the past, and it is no longer exclusively concentrated in governments. Non-state actors such as the Bretton Woods institutions, financial institutions and monopolies have become increasingly important, and interventionist.

The rampant neo-liberal paradigm equates market economics with market societies. It gives little consideration to concerns about sustainable development, representative democracy, human rights, social justice, and the environment. It sees globalisation as a de-regulated process that is able to do anything anywhere in the world to maximise profits.

Is it therefore not surprising that on the one hand we are experiencing growing impoverishment of the South while on the other hand we are also witnessing a growing disparity between the rich and the poor in the North which is giving rise to extreme right tendencies in Europe and North America.

The voice of exponents of racism, neo-fascism, and the "clash of civilisation" is growing stronger and becoming more strident. This is a challenge we cannot ignore.

The historic Millenium Declaration, is the alternative perspective that must guide our policies:

" We believe that the central challenge we face today is to ensure that globalisation becomes a positive force for all the world’s people. For while globalisation offers great opportunities, at present its benefits are very unevenly shared, while its costs are unevenly distributed. We recognise that developing countries and countries with economies in transition face special difficulties in responding to this central challenge. Only through broad and sustained efforts to create a shared future, based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, can globalisation be made fully inclusive and equitable. These efforts must include policies and measures, at the global level, which correspond to the needs of developing countries and economies in transition, and are formulated and implemented with their effective participation".

At the 1998 Summit we agreed that the development agenda of NAM must inform the development agenda of the international community. We can be proud that through of the co-operation of the South, we were able to ensure that the Millenium Declaration captured much of the South’s developmental Agenda. You will be discussing what we, together, can do to ensure that the decisions are successfully implemented?

Chairperson, we seek to achieve our objectives in a world which, since 11 September 2001, has to grapple with the consequences of the terrorist attacks, in the USA.

There is a growing debate, inter alia, about "unipolarity and multi-polarity"; debates about "unilateralism" the of "Global Coalition Against Terrorism", "Axis Against Evil" debates about "humanitarian intervention" and the division of the World into one of "Either with us or against us".

We must not only note and analyse these developments but we must seek to have a common response to them.

Notwithstanding the fundamental changes to international relations, the global challenges affecting humanity are precisely the same as those before 11 September 2001! If anything, these challenges have taken on a new urgency. To defeat terrorism, we need a holistic multi-lateralist approach in dealing with the root causes thereof.

These root causes, are, inter alia:

eradication of poverty, communicable and pandemic diseases such as AIDS;
sustainable development;
the negative consequences of globalisation;
global warming;
racism, xenophobia and other forms of intolerance;
transnational crime and terrorism.
threats to global peace and security, conflicts generally and
especially the current conflict in the Middle East.

We once again meet in Durban to articulate concerns and positions of developing countries. Over the next few days we will discuss these issues and seek solutions.

Today, we can’t fail to mention that the conflict in the Middle East constitutes a serious threat to International Peace and Security. The events in Jennin and other occupied Palestinian territories demands that the International Community acts decisively.

Can we allow U.N. Security Resolutions to be flouted with such impurity? Can we allow the scale of death and destruction carried out by the Israeli Defence Force to continue?

Resolutions 1402 and 1403, and 1405, which countries of the NAM strongly lobbied for and which calls for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from all occupied Palestinian territory, must be implemented immediately.

Later today the NAM Committee on Palestine will be meeting. We seek their urgent guidance on how to break the cycle of violence and achieve a long-lasting and durable solution.

We will also voice our concerns about many other issues, which still stand in the way of development. We must therefore ensure that we are united in what we stand for and what we want. The enormous challenges confronting us demands that we translate our words into action.

Delegates

Ten years ago at the Summit in Indonesia we concluded that the changing world order demanded that on the basis of a deep introspection and self-critical evaluation we should embark on a renewal exercise; that we should determine a common vision and that we should develop a Programme of Action.

The Ministerial Committee on Methodology was mandated to :

rationalise the activities of NAM
to ensure better co-ordination of Working Groups
to ensure better co-ordination with the G-77 and G-15
to ensure a more equitable and mutually beneficial relations with the G-8 and other groupings of the North.

You will discuss what progress, if any, we have made?

As we seek to answer this question, I wish to re-iterate what we have said on so many NAM meetings.

The Movement must define and prioritise our agenda in clear and practical terms, aiming for a new political order in the 21st Century. More than ever it is of vital importance that the developing world stands together to bring equity and balance to the international political and economic governance system.

We must commit ourselves to better the lives of the vast majority of humankind who live in poverty and indignity; we must promote the principles of democracy, good governance and the rule of law; we must protect human rights, we must advance sustainable development and strive for peace and security for all.

These values underpin the rationale for the existence of our Movement. We don’t need pious lecturing on these issues. Also how do we respond to the increasing conditionalities being imposed on us re ODA assistance and other forms of co-operation?

Distinguished delegates,

It is in the interests of all to join hands in true solidarity to realise the vision of a prosperous, just and peaceful world, the very same vision that inspired the birth of the United Nations and our Movement. In this context the United Nations system, NAM and the G-77 remains the platform from which we should advance our goal for a fair and equitable world order. Consequently a top priority of the Movement should be to democratise the United Nations system, and carry out the Mandate of the Jakarta, Cartagena and Durban Summits dealing with methodology and institutional reform.

Delegates,

The Millenium Summit, the WTO Conference in Doha, the Finance for Development Conference in Monterey (Canada) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg later this year, must enable us to arrive at a comprehensive, frank review of the development agenda of the past ten years and reinvigorate, at the highest political level, the global commitment to Sustainable Development. The countries of the NAM must, at this forum, play a pivotal role in achieving our objectives.

Distinguished delegates,

At the beginning I spoke generally about the uneven benefits of globalisation and its disastrous impact on countries of the South. Nowhere else is this reality more stark than on the African Continent.

In the 1998 Summit – President Pastrana Arango said :

"A new Africa is being born …. It is an Africa in where hunger and disease, drought and illiteracy, poverty and conflict still persist…. It is a continent which needs the openhanded and massive co-operation of the entire community of nations"

Lets look at some facts :

The number of Africa’s poor have grown relentlessly and Africa’s share of the world’s absolute poor increased from 25% to 30% in the 1990’s;
Africa’s share of world trade has plummeted since 1960;
It now accounts for less than 2% of world .

The OECD countries, which have an agricultural subsidy of $360 billion, a year, makes it impossible for Africa, indeed the South’s agricultural producers to compete with such protectionist policies.

Africa is the only region to see investments and savings decline after 1970. The Savings rate in many African countries are the lowest in the world.

In 1997 Africa’s debt was estimated to be $159 billion and by 1999 this increased to 201 billion dollars. We are faced with the reality that outstanding external debts in many African countries exceed the entire GDP, and service requirements exceed 25% of total export earnings.

Overseas development assistance has dropped more than one fifth in real terms since 1992.

Many countries have taken steps to create a climate conducive to direct foreign investment. They have either through structural adjustment programmes or as country programmes put in place trade liberalisation policies; the strengthening of the rule of law; improvements in legal and other instruments; greater investment in infrastructure development, privatisation, greater accountability and transparency, greater degree of financial and budgetary discipline and the creation and consolidation of multi-party democracies. However foreign direct investment has not flowed sufficiently to Africa.

Diseases such as HIV/Aids, Malaria, and Tuberculosis are also causing major problems for our countries.

Electrical power consumption per person in Africa is the lowest in the world; Tokyo has more telephones than the whole of Africa; less than half of 1% of all Africans have used the internet.

Given this stark reality African leaders have concluded that we need to "fundamentally change or die".

To meet this challenge the African continent is promoting a New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). This partnership aims to extricate the continent from the malaise of under-development and exclusion in a globalising world. This is an African Programme, devised by Africans for tackling the challenges of African underdevelopment. It is an ambitious programme and we have no illusions about the tremendous difficulties we will face to achieve its objectives. We don’t see it as an event but as a process.

NEPAD endeavours to implement the development goals of the South, within the spirit of South-South co-operation. For millions of our people NEPAD will be the Lithmus test to determine whether south-south co-operation is being forged in concrete programmes of action. It offers tremendous opportunities for the South-South platform at governmental level, at the private sector level, and at the levels of civil society generally.

Distinguished delegates,

It is our believe that NAM is motivated by the reality that "If a free society cannot help the many that are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich" and that "Development that perpetuates today’s inequalities is neither sustainable, or worth sustaining"

Together in unity and partnership, let us ensure that we give content to the Durban Declaration "NAM, so representative of the Majority – with such abundance in commodities and bio-physical diversity - has a central role to play in regulating the advance of humanity.

Through concrete action we must ensure that we have reached the turning point where the formerly dispossessed, the majority enter into their inheritance.

I wish you success in your deliberations.

Thank you.