Depending on one’s location, the World Summit on Sustainable Development could not have come at a worse or a better time. It coincides with growing tensions and escalation of violence in the Middle East; it comes as war between the United States and Iraq appears to be imminent; when famine threatens to decimate the population of the Southern African Development Community region; when Aids is beginning to wreak havoc in the social and economic fabric of the subcontinent. When, within South Africa, there are evictions of homeless people, growing restlessness among citizens, threats of protest by the Landless People’s Movement, disgruntlement with the government’s macroeconomic policies and growing tensions within the ruling alliance. All these seem to conspire to divert attention from the summit. Yet all of these issues are connected to the very essence of the summit. Indeed, the summit will have to reflect on poverty, inequality, HIV/Aids and trade inequalities — all of which are central to the achievement of the millennium’s development goals. All of these highlight the importance of the summit in as much as they threaten to derail it.
With South African civil society committed to using the summit to highlight its unhappiness, we can expect howls of outrage, similar to that expressed when the South African Municipal Workers’ Union strike coincided with the launch of the African Union. We can expect suggestions that these protests are aimed at embarrassing the country — as if the country is the property of certain individuals within the ruling elite. But mass mobilisation and protest are the very heart of the democratic participation that the millennium’s development goals call for. The suggestion that some people are out to embarrass the country simply reflects the failure of the host country to appreciate that the summit is a response to the world’s disgruntled majority of which our citizens form a not insignificant part.
Perhaps it is important to reflect on this summit — its goals and objectives and what their prospects of success are. What we expect from the conference is a recommitment to earlier commitments — not only those from Rio but also those from Doha, from Monterrey and from the millennium goals. But all of these pious commitments are subject to the economic interests of participating countries. In her budget speech this year, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma had this to say: ”The process of globalisation … leads to the ever-widening gap between the rich North and the poor South, as well as within countries … [It] has left African countries in increased poverty and under- development exacerbated by the declining official development assistance and foreign direct investment.
”It is estimated,” she continued, ”that Africa’s share of global trade continued to shrink from 3,1% to 0,7% during the past three years. Coupled with the perennial and inescapable debt trap, African countries are net exporters of capital to the West depriving their countries of essential services such as health, education and infrastructure development. This means millions of people are hungry and angry.”
A striking illustration of countries of the North declaring a commitment to poverty reduction although acting in their own interests and contributing to further impoverishment is United States President George W Bush’s farm Bill. This will perpetuate over-production and export-dumping. According to the World Bank, West African cotton importers already lose about $250-million a year as a direct result of US subsidies. In some of these countries, the losses already represent three times the savings provided through debt relief. Thus trade policy acts to negate aid, and desperately poor Africans will suffer more even as the world gathers in Sandton.
Only two months ago the World Food Summit was snubbed when only two leaders from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the ”club” of the wealthy North, attended a meeting critical to tackling the food crisis. This was despite the fact that one person dies every four seconds as a direct or indirect result of malnutrition.
The challenge facing sustainability is whether countries are able to rise above their national and sectoral interests to give meaning to their high-sounding statements. The threats to sustainability are well known, they were articulated in Agenda 21. Despite the clarity that prevailed at Rio, the programmes adopted have been inadequately implemented. There has been reluctance to commit financial resources, to build capacity and to transfer the technology required for sustainable development.
Instead new challenges have negatively impacted on the vision of Agenda 21. The unprecedented period of growing productivity and capital accumulation stands in stark contrast to the fact that each year 10-million more join the ranks of the poor. Globalisation continues to exclude and marginalise developing countries from the world economy. Indeed, Agenda 21 and commitments made in Rio have bought little comfort to the one billion poor people to whom these commitments are but a distant dream and, who, with their families, live an economic nightmare every day.
The economic salvation of the developing countries will not be found in conference pronouncements. Neither should refuge be sought in the mantras of international conference circuits such as ”growing inequality poses a fundamental threat to the world”.
This has not prevented, both in our country and in the world, the rich from continuing to amass wealth and living in comfort in a sea of poverty. Khayalitsha exists side-by-side with the opulence of Cape Town. Alexandra exists side-by-side with Sandton.
It is the very same politicians who pay lip service to the poor whose comforts take precedence of the needs of that poor. There appears to be no crisis of conscience when their needs take precedence over the poor, the landless and the diseased.
More than anything else, we need an honest and a realistic assessment of what might be the outcomes for us of the summit. We need an honest assessment of the progress we are making rather than a jamboree that is used to mask the failures and lack of progress in the national agenda. For example, education is probably the most powerful instrument for reducing poverty and inequality, for laying the basis for democracy, sustained economic growth and sound governance. Yet the minister of education’s latest report on education in the provinces reveals appalling failures in delivery.
Our expectations of any renaissance must start first with humble but pragmatic aspirations. If we cannot get it right in education, then we cannot get it right anywhere. We need to get it right in our schools. We must pay attention to the small do-ables before embarking on grand schemes. In retreat from our failures we find refuge in a quest for elusive greatness, the African renaissance and declaration of this as the ”African century”. But the hard realities make nonsense of such grandiose appropriations.