As a new nation facing challenges, South Africa needs fruitful cooperation and partnerships to better the lives of its people, Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya said at an inter-governmental seminar in Pretoria on Tuesday.
”Collaboration amongst us can only take us forward in pursuit of the goal of a better life for our people,” Skweyiya said.
Participants in the seminar, titled ”Cooperation for Development”, include delegates from Angola, Chile, Brazil, Mozambique and South Africa.
On the agenda are issues such as good governance, human rights and human security.
With 18-million South Africans living below the poverty line, a programme to create jobs and income-generating activities is needed, Skweyiya said.
Social assistance is the biggest poverty alleviation programme in South Africa and this reaches about 11,8-million South Africans, the majority of whom are children.
”However, social grants cannot guarantee community empowerment unless they are linked to economic activities,” Skweyiya said, adding that work on addressing the shortfall is in progress.
The reality is that people ware not interested in handouts, and it cannot be ruled out that grants may promote dependency instead of boosting self-reliance.
”There is a need to revamp the social-security system in line with the approach of linking grants to economic activities,” he said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said at the seminar that cooperation in development should address inequality, poverty alleviation and marginalisation in South Africa.
”The seminar provides an opportunity for us as developing countries to reflect and consider how best we can advance the interest of our country and our people in the spirit of South-South solidarity,” Pahad said.
He said globalisation and the attitude of major powers, who put their interests above developing countries, are some of the challenges facing the cooperation for development.
”We must therefore develop a strategy to position ourselves to making the global agenda relevant to our interests.”
Pahad urged the countries to share experiences of achievement and to better ensure the quality of life for people. — Sapa