South Africans will constitute about 10 000 of the 65 000 delegates who will descend on Johannesburg for the World Summit on Sustainable Development next month.
As South Africa is the host country local NGOs may each send three delegates to the civil society component of the summit.
Next week the recognised sectors of South African civil society will meet to discuss the policy positions they will take to the summit.
Desmond Lesejane, the CEO of the South African Civil Society Secretariat, says there is unlikely to be any agreement in South African civil society on political policy positions, especially on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad).
He says large components of civil society fear that Nepad’s economic framework imposes a neo-liberal agenda and a dependence on foreign investment for success. Debt cancellation will also be one of the big issues.
In addition, Lesejane is concerned that the South African government does not have a proper programme for sustainable development, a requirement that came out of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.
Many African civil society groups feel that South Africa did not address issues of poverty and development enough during the preparatory talks for the summit in Bali a month ago; in particular the voluntary partnerships touted between governments, the private sector and the civil society.
Non-governmental groups had hoped some form of commitment to these issues would come out of the Bali talks.
“We have to have more than voluntary partnerships. Much unhappiness was expressed at Bali at the concept of voluntary partnerships. Civil society is saying we need clear mechanisms in place to ensure the implementation of halving poverty by 2015,” Lesejane says.
“My concern is that we have to get compliance and implementation from the government at the summit. Voluntary partnerships are not enough. This will be the big challenge at the summit for us.”
The South African government has not yet listened carefully to the voices of civil society, he says. “They are quick to listen to business; it takes them longer to hear our voices.”
But Lesejane also blames civil society for the problem.
“We don’t know how to lobby and network properly. We tend to talk to each other on public platforms … Here we have a situation where all views must be accommodated. Ideologically, to expect a monolithic bloc is unrealistic.”