Number 16, 3rd Quarter 2002
Special 51st National Conference Edition
The papers in this UMRABULO provide information and outline the key political and policy issues for debate towards 51st National Conference. These discussion papers are not ANC policy. The National Policy Conference will adopt draft resolutions, which will be circulated before National Conference. Delegates at National Conference will further discuss all these issues and Conference will adopt policy for the ANC for the next five years.
By President Thabo Mbeki
The National Executive Committee of the ANC met in July 2002 to consider various matters relating to the 51st National Conference, which will be held in December. In this regard, the NEC had to examine the policy decisions adopted at the 50th National Conference in 1997 and the 2000 National General Council.
The purpose of this work was to make an assessment as to whether these policy positions required a fundamental review or whether they remain correct and valid. This exercise also enabled the National Executive Committee (NEC) to make a determination concerning the work that had been done to implement these policies and thus begin the outline of the programme of action required further to advance to the goals set in the policy decisions.
The NEC took the view that the essential pillars of our policy as decided by the 1997 and 2000 conferences remain valid and correct. It also agreed that there may be a few areas that might require some new policy initiatives. Nevertheless, these would not alter the direction set by these previous conferences.
However, the NEC also took the view that we must continue with our preparations to hold a Policy Conference before the National Conference. Through our branches, the membership has therefore been asked to make its own determination concerning these important matters relating to policy. Delegates representing the views of this membership will therefore gather at the Policy Conference to effect such changes as may be thought necessary.
An important feature of the ANC over time has been the stability of its policy positions. This derives from an unswerving commitment to the vision of a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa. Whatever the detail in the policy, the orientation has remained the same -the creation of this kind of South Africa. Accordingly, at all times the ANC has avoided any opportunism and populism, whatever the circumstances. It has also resisted all attempts to deny it its right to make its own decisions. Both during the period of extreme repression and in the context of the ideological and political struggle to determine the future of our country, the ANC has kept to its fundamental tenets.
At the heart of these is the commitment to achieve people-centred development and build a caring society. The policies adopted by the 1997 and 2000 conferences are focused on the achievement of these goals. To this end, they aim at the eradication of the legacy of colonialism and racism. Necessarily, therefore, they are focused on ending the gender, racial and geographic imbalances that continue to characterise our country.
They are directed at ensuring that we end the poverty and underdevelopment of the majority of our people imposed on us by centuries of national oppression and exploitation. Obviously, this covers many areas of human activity, both social and economic.
Our existing policies are also aimed at ensuring that we build a society that enables all our citizens to develop themselves to the full and to exercise their right to human dignity. This entails not only freedom from want. It also includes the critical right of the citizen to safety and security and the inviolability of every person. It also includes access to knowledge, to banish ignorance, and freedom to enjoy one's culture and language and to develop one's identity.
Through the decades, the ANC has sustained the vision of African unity, convinced that the peoples of our continent share a common destiny and that they need to combine their efforts and resources to achieve Africa's renaissance. We have been committed to the view that Africa must play her rightful role in global affairs, no longer marginalized and despised. The positions she takes must also help further to intensify the global offensive for the defeat of racism and xenophobia.
The objectives we have set ourselves, for the fundamental renewal of both our country and continent, will not be realised overnight. All of us are familiar with the reality of the deeply entrenched legacy of the past both within South Africa and the rest of our continent. We are therefore aware that it will take us time to achieve the goals that we seek.
It is because of this that the need does not arise to review policy everyday, provided, of course, that such policies prove to be correct in practice. The basic reality we face is that the legacy we have sought to remove and the new society we are struggling to create are positive achievements that are still ahead of us. The policies we have put in place correctly express our determination to reach these goals. They must therefore remain in force until such time that the change in the circumstances they seek to address demands that they should themselves be changed.
The work to elaborate concrete policies for a free South Africa, on the basis of the Freedom Charter, began already in the mid-1980s. The outcome of this protracted and detailed work has resulted in the many policies governing our country as it goes through the process of reconstruction and development.
These include our national constitution and the many pieces of legislation that provide the legal basis and framework for the implementation of our transformation programme. It is therefore clear that we do have a strong and comprehensive lawful programme for change, based on the policies we have elaborated over a considerable period of time. The challenge ahead of us is to ensure that these policies succeed to create the kind of South Africa our people expect and which we intend to build.
One of the themes of our 51st National Conference is - People's Power in Action! Through struggle, today we have an entrenched democracy in our country. At all levels, the governments in place are governments freely chosen by the masses of our people. Continuously we are making all efforts to organise and mobilise our people so that they participate in the process of governance, within the three spheres of government. We want the vision realised as comprehensively, that the people shall govern!
Given that we have now established the firm policy base we need to guide the transformation process, and given that we also have the democratic instruments and institutions to implement these policies, it is correct that our 51st National Conference should indeed position itself as a conference dedicated to the objective of action to speed up change.
Less than eighteen months after we hold this conference, our country will celebrate its 10th anniversary of liberation. When this important moment comes, we must be able to measure in quantifiable ways the progress we have made during the first decade of liberation. This last lap to that anniversary should also inspire us to ensure that we use People's Power in Action more effectively further to advance quicker towards the goals of a better life for all and a truly transformed South Africa.
The 51st National Conference of our movement must therefore be a Congress of Fighters for Change. Its place in our history must be defined as the critical point at which, having produced the design of the new South Africa, the people's movement turned all its focus to the task of ensuring the speedy construction of our country according to that design.
This requires that we ourselves, as members of the ANC, go back to the decisions we took at the Port Elizabeth National General Council (NGC) in 2000. At that NGC, we made the commitment that we would transform ourselves into new cadres dedicated to serve the people for accelerated change. The moment is upon us that we deploy ourselves as such cadres to bring about the faster change that the masses of our people are calling for.
Accordingly, our National Conference will not be a place for those who have joined our movement to gain positions, access resources and otherwise serve only their personal interests. As usual, the Conference will carry out its work of choosing the leadership of the ANC as it sees fit, from the President to the other members of the National Executive Committee. But is will be the responsibility of the genuine cadres of our movement to ensure that the Conference is not diverted from the duty it owes to the masses of our people, to set the pace for the accelerated social transformation of our country.
The 51st National Conference must therefore be a Congress of New Cadres United in Action for Change. It must address the question thoroughly and accurately - what must we do as these new cadres, to ensure that we accelerate the processes towards a better life for all our people.
Yet another theme of our Conference is - Phambili mavolontiya! The new cadre must, indeed, be a volunteer ready to work selflessly for the cause of the people. The genuine cadres of our movement will surely distinguish themselves as they have been doing during the year of the 90th anniversary of the ANC, the Year of the Volunteer. Thus, by the end of our Conference, these volunteers who constitute the very backbone of our movement, must have a clear view of what their tasks are as they directly engage the challenge for accelerated change.
The theme People's Power in Action requires that we ensure that we focus this people's power more aggressively on the same matter of speeding up the advance towards the eradication of the apartheid legacy and the construction of a new society. Thanks to our support and the confidence the masses have in our movement, the ANC is the dominant political force in all three spheres of government.
This puts a particular responsibility on us to ensure that the government structures we lead, both executive and administrative, carry out the responsibility with which they are charged. This is the task of ensuring the speedy and effective implementation of the policies and programmes that we have put in place.
We know that many structures of government continue to show many weaknesses. We have to intervene to ensure that these are corrected. We must work to encourage the local governments to work efficiently, to communicate with the people and to root out the corrupt elements at this level of government, who use many methods to enrich themselves.
Some provinces are persistently showing unacceptable levels of performance with regard to service delivery and the encouragement of social and economic development. Urgent steps will have to be taken to ensure that these deficiencies are addressed. Again, this will require the sustained attention of the genuine cadres of our movement.
At the national level as well, we must pay attention especially to improved integrated planning and execution, the speedy implementation of development programmes and the proper and full use of all allocated resources, for the benefit of the people.
Even as we work at home for change, so must we sustain our effort to contribute to the speedy renewal of our continent, living up to the expectations of the African masses and the responsibilities that have been given to our country. We must respond correctly to yet another theme of our National Conference - Afrika ke nako!
As the branches do their work to prepare for the Policy Conference, they have to reflect on the matters we have raised, bearing in mind that the principal task ahead of us is to achieve further advances with our people, t o the 10th anniversary of freedom and beyond!
The 51st National Conference of the ANC will be held over four days from 16-20 December 2002 at the University of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. National Conference is the highest decision-making structure of the ANC.
According to ANC Constitution (Rule 9), 90% of voting delegates at Conference shall be from branches, which shall be represented by elected delegates. This means that your branch delegate/s will have a chance to influence the vision, strategies, policies, structures, leadership and work of the ANC.
All members of the ANC are supposed to belong to the branch as the basic unit of the movement. Because of the central role of branches and their delegates at National Conference, ANC members through their BECs must ensure that:
The ANC National Conference through its 90 years of history is a parliament of our people. All delegates must therefore be prepared, to ensure that it is a Congress of New Cadres United in Action for Change.
Key issues for branches to discuss for Conference
Your branch delegate will have a chance to influence the vision, strategies, policies, structure and work of the ANC. S/he will have a vote to decide who must lead the ANC during the next five years.
Your branch delegate should therefore be the voice of your branch - this means that the branch must discuss the most important issues beforehand and give the delegate a mandate.
Branches should use the discussion documents in this edition of Umrabulo. These discussion documents are not ANC policy - they are there to outline the key policy and political issues and debates that face our movement and to give background information.
The discussions of the various policy issues will inform the National Policy Conference that will be held in September 2002. The Policy Conference will adopt draft resolutions, which will be circulated before National Conference. Delegates at National Conference will further discuss all these issues and will then adopt policy for the ANC for the next five years.
In this guide, we try to simplify the main discussions into the three categories:
Political challenges facing the ANC
Discussion papers to read as background: Strategy and Tactics and The balance of forces
Key issues
Policy Issues
All the policy discussion papers. The branch should in addition to answering these general questions, also identify the key issues that it want to input on, e.g. local government or health or whatever other policy area.
Improving the organisational structure of the ANC
Discussion paper on Organisational Design
The key challenges facing the ANC are to use the centers of power (the state, economy, battle of ideas, civil society), to mobilise the motive forces in order to transform our society and to create a better life for all our people.
How National Conference works
The National Conference of the ANC is held every five (5) years. It is our highest decision making structure which has the power to set policies and programmes for the ANC, to amend the Constitution and to elect the Officials and members of the National Executive Committee (NEC).
Delegates, Observers and Guests (Credentials) The Conference will consist of the following categories:
Each branch in good standing will be allocated delegates by the province, in proportion to their paid-up membership on 31 July 2002. A national task team will do an audit of all branches during August 2002, and will then make a recommendation to the NEC on how many branch delegates each province will receive. The PEC and REC will then inform each branch about their number of delegates for Conference.
Registration: Branch delegates must be elected at a properly constituted Branch General Meeting and must fill in a registration form, which should be submitted through the region and province to headquarters by not later than 31 October 2002. The branch is supposed to pay a registration fee of R500 for each delegate (other categories of delegates pay more).
Conference programme
The Conference programme is divided into a number of important items:
Opening Address: The ANC President gives a political overview on the state of the nation, the movement and the challenges facing the movement. This will set the tone of Conference, map out the main tasks of Conference and delegates, and will guide discussions at Conference.
Organisational Report: The Secretary General on behalf of the NEC presents an overview and an assessment of the work of the ANC structures and government over the last five years.
Treasurer General's report: The Treasurer General gives a report on the state of finances of the movement during the five years.
Strategy and Tactics: The Strategy and Tactics is the political programme of the ANC, which sets out the objectives, vision and mission of the ANC, the environment in which we operate and the programme of the National Democratic Revolution. It is presented at plenary, discussed by every delegate in Commissions and then debated again at plenary for final adoption.
Commissions: Commissions are smaller group discussions (not more than 150 people in each) at Conference, to allow for more in depth discussions and ensuring that as many people participate in deliberations at Conference as possible.
There will be two sets of Commissions.
Topics for these commissions will include:-
Organisational Design and Constitutional amendments: This commission will table a report at plenary, dealing with the proposals on how to make the ANC more effective to meet its mission. These proposals will be debated and must be adopted by plenary.
The Commission will then present the proposed Constitutional amendments, one after the other. Amendments are adopted by two-thirds of voting delegates at Conference.
If there are constitutional amendments that affect the NEC, they will be debated and passed on the first day so that nominations for the NEC can start.
Election of Officials and members of the NEC: Before Conference, the Elections Commission appointed by the NEC will circulate nomination procedures and forms to all branches. Branches nominate and they inform regional and provincial mandates. The Elections commission at national level receives and processes nominations before Conference. Further nominations may be accepted at National Conference if 25% of voting delegates support the nomination (Rule 11.4). Voting is by secret ballot and it takes place throughout conference, starting with the election of officials.
The newly elected NEC is announced during the last session of Conference.
Resolutions: Resolutions from Commissions will be tabled, discussed and amended at plenary. At the start of Conference, a drafting committee is appointed that works throughout conference with commission rapporteurs and facilitators to compile draft resolutions.
Conference Declaration: During the last session, a Conference Declaration is adopted that summarises the decisions of Conference.
Closing Address: The newly elected President delivers this address, focusing on the main issues and political direction for the country and our people that came out of Conference.
Strategy and Tactics of the ANC should inform discussion of all issues, in preparation for National Conference.
The Strategy and Tactics document adopted at the 50th Conference in 1997, "All Power to the People - Building on the Foundation for a Better Life", defines the environment within which we are conducting the struggle, the character and the objectives of that struggle, the forces to carry it out as well as opportunities and obstacles.
Are all sections of the 1997 Strategy and Tactics document still relevant? Have there been major developments in the past five years that are not reflected?
A proper discussion on the need or otherwise to amend/rewrite the current Strategy and Tactics document will require that all of us should have thoroughly read the document as adopted at the 50th National Conference. The discussion otherwise becomes an exercise in futility: for instance, with additions proposed of issues that are otherwise contained in the current document.
After comments from branches and other structures, concrete proposals will be taken to Conference for further discussion and final decision-making.
Defining Strategy and Tactics
Strategy represents the broad definition of the ultimate objectives of struggle: in brief, what kind of society we seek to create, the forces that are objectively the drivers of the struggle, and the forces arraigned against them. Tactics are the variety of methods used to attain those objectives, including the instruments used to wage the struggle and how to mobilise and organise the motive forces.
Broadly, the strategy of a revolutionary organisation does not change in substantial ways during that particular struggle. However, its content can be improved as the objective situation changes and in the light of new experience. This may include interpretation of the basic objectives (such as provisions of the Freedom Charter) or introduction of new qualitative elements (such as non-sexism).
Tactics used in each phase of struggle depend on the objective environment in which the struggle is waged. The methods used by the adversaries also influence tactics. A correct reading of the balance of forces in each phase is therefore critical to making tactical choices.
Such phases are not defined in terms of calendar years, conferences or national electoral cycles. Rather they may reflect major changes in the alignment of forces for and against the struggle, shifts in the international situation, availability of new instruments to wage struggle and insights gained in practical work.
These categories of "strategy" and "tactics" are defined in the context of the NDR. If the canvass were armed struggle or governance, one could define narrower categories of "strategy" and "tactics" for each one of them. In other words any activity can have its own categories of "strategy" and "tactics".
While strategy informs tactics, the latter can have a critical impact on strategy. For instance, major tactical shifts can influence at least the interpretation of the strategic objective. Some major tactical decisions (such as embarking on armed struggle) can assume strategic proportions. And some tactical shifts can over time congeal into a change in strategic outlook: the transformation of quantity into quality.
Evolution of ANC Strategy and Tactics
During various phases of struggle, the ANC has occasionally introduced major reformulations of its strategic positions. In some instances, major shifts have led to new formal strategic policy positions.
At its founding in 1912, freedom was defined by the ANC in a specific and narrow way, such as demanding the vote for "all civilised men". This approach changed over the years, reflected in the adoption of the African's Claims calling for universal suffrage against colonialism and imperialism in 1943 and, most significantly, the adoption of the Freedom Charter in 1955.
In terms of tactics, petitions were reinforced and later replaced by mass struggles including strike action, defiance of unjust laws and later a combination of armed struggle, underground work, mass mobilisation and more systematic international work.
During these periods, the imperative of uniting African people was augmented by mobilisation of all blacks and white democrats. Further, the central role of the working class and the critical importance of non-sexism were appreciated. Various organisational forms were adopted to mobilise these forces - including the emergence of the Tripartite Alliance - led by the ANC.
The Congress of the People in 1955 was a seminal event in that, for the first time, a brief but comprehensive programme defining the new society we seek to create was elaborated. The ANC and others adopted the Freedom Charter as the strategic objective of the NDR. It remains such a manifesto.
However, interpretation of the provisions of the Charter has evolved over time, influenced by the objective national and international environment. Interaction with progressive global experience has also affected the outlook of the ANC.
Some of the milestones in this regard are:
ANC Strategy and Tactics
As indicated above, the strategic objective of the ANC has found articulation in a variety of documents, as have the tactical programmes, in the form of Conference resolutions and decisions of the NEC.
In the post-1955 period, a number of documents sought to capture the tactical choices, proceeding from the premise that the Freedom Charter defined the strategic objective: e.g., the 1958 National Conference with heightened repression and the threat of banning, Operation Mayibuye as the armed struggle was being launched, and the Gaborone NEC decisions in 1963 after the Rivonia arrests.
In 1969 at the Morogoro Conference, after the Wankie and Sipholilo experiences, and in line with traditions among revolutionary movements, these articulations were, for the first time, consolidated into a comprehensive Strategy and Tactics document. The document outlines the history and character of the struggle and elaborates an understanding of the strategic objectives as contained in the Freedom Charter.
This document persisted until a new one was drafted at the Kabwe Conference in 1985. This in part reflected the time span between Conferences; but in part it was because the Morogoro document retained its broad relevance. However, in the period building up to Kabwe, particularly after the 1976 uprising and changes in Southern Africa, new approaches had evolved in actual practice.
The changes included consolidation of the ANC as a revolutionary movement; the balances that needed to be struck between armed, underground and mass struggles; and nature of the international, regional and national balance of forces.
Attempts in the post-1990 period formally to define Strategy and Tactics in a comprehensive document, have resulted in drafts adopted in Durban, 1991 and Bloemfontein, 1994. The regular redrafting reflected the fluidity of the situation, with major strategic and tactical choices being made as the situation evolved.
In 1991 the movement had just emerged from the underground and was grappling with the complex task of negotiations; in 1994 it had just become the leading force in government. Mafikeng 1997 therefore presented an opportunity to articulate the ANC's Strategy and Tactics in the light of experience in government.
Content of the Strategy and Tactics document
The following major issues require noting from the 1997 Strategy and Tactics document:
Issue of gender
Unlike with previous S&T documents, Conference expressly decided that issues of gender should be integrated into all sections of the document.
Balance of forces
The document defines this in the context of the negotiations process, the outcome of the negotiations, nature of the emergent democratic state, and in debating the question of counter-revolution in the post-1994 period.
Character of the NDR
While confirming the strategic objective of the NDR, the S&T document seeks to introduce matters of state power attained, as well as the relationship between the strategic objective and the formal constitutional dispensation achieved with the adoption of the democratic Constitution. It also poses questions around primary and secondary contradictions in the new milieu.
Motive forces of the revolution and character of the ANC
The document reiterates the traditional approach with regard to these forces, and elaborates on two issues attendant to the assumption of power: the place and role of the emergent black bourgeoisie and the challenge of "social distance" arising out of being in political office. International situation
This section seeks to characterise the nature of the international situation in which we have to operate, including a unipolar world and globalisation, and how the interests of SA, Africa and the developing world can be pursued under these circumstances.
Programme of National Democratic Transformation
Broad challenges in the critical spheres of social transformation are identified, informed in the main by the RDP. This covers issues of democracy and governance, meeting social needs, economic transformation and safety and security matters.
Pillars of struggle
In the conclusion, the S&T document summarises the main current tasks in the form of five pillars:
New developments, new experiences, new challenges
With regard to most of the issues identified above, there have been new developments and/or new experiences that pose new challenges going forward. In some instances, new debates have arisen within the ANC and its allies, which may require better articulation. What needs to be weighed in each instance is whether these are of such a fundamental nature that they would require amendment to the S&T document or the drafting of a new one.
Briefly, some of the issues that can be identified in the post-1997 period are:
Balance of forces
There has been some fluidity in the international balance of forces, reflected in such developments as better self-assertion by forces calling for a humane world order, new discourse on the impact of globalisation and prescriptions of the IMF and World Bank and broad acceptance of Africa's agenda as reflected in NEPAD. Does globalisation fit into descriptions of stages of capitalism, with imperialism previously described as the highest stage of capitalism - are we beyond the stage of imperialism?
At the national level, the ANC has been returned with a larger majority in 1999, extreme right-wing forces have been significantly neutralised, difficulties persist in the area of ideological discourse, a new spirit of patriotism is taking root, advances have been registered in transforming the state, and limited progress has been made in transforming the economy.
Combined, these and other factors have created the possibility for more rapid social transformation, within the context of "continuity and change".
Character of the NDR
The issue of the relationship between the democratic movement and capital has been subjected to much scrutiny, with important conclusions on such issues as pooling of the fiscus, state capital and social capital; and defining the relationship with private capital as that of "unity and struggle". This is proceeding from the premise that one of the central tasks of the NDR is to change apartheid property relations. Within this context, there is also the broader question of tactical alliances between the liberation movement and "patriotic capital", which is broader than just the black bourgeoisie.
Debates in the Tripartite Alliance on various tactical issues, have raised sharply the issue of the management of secondary contradictions among the motive forces of the struggle.
Further, we need in clear terms to define the values underpinning the society we seek to build. Related to this is the issue of national identity.
Motive forces of the NDR and character of the ANC
A critical matter that has arisen in the debate on motive forces is the very definition of motive forces and whether in particular the black bourgeoisie can still be characterised as part of these forces. The approach in the Strategy and Tactics document is based on the understanding that a motive force "objectively" stands to gain from victory of the NDR. This definition is based on standard ANC and Tri-partite Alliance methodology used over the past decades. The question is whether the theoretical method and/or national and class alignment have so changed as to require a review.
The issue of the concrete meaning and expression of the vanguard role of the working class in the NDR, and in this phase in particular, has arisen, from concrete experiences. So has the question of the composition of the working class and the progressive trade union movement with the growth of the service sector and the IT industry, as well as the relative preponderance, in this union movement, of state employees. Related to these issues is the question of the relationship between the NDR and socialism, and how the ANC positions itself in this regard. This has also been impacted upon by the decision of the ANC to join the Socialist International.
The organisational expression of these motive forces includes the ANC as the leader. One of the central organisational challenges is how the ANC should relate to other organs of civil society, and how we characterise the latter in the light of the post-1994 experience.
International situation
The question here is whether the reading of the balance of forces as briefly outlined above would require a reformulation of this section of the Strategy and Tactics document. This includes the issue of the character and role of the "anti-globalisation" movement.
Related to this is the question of the sovereignty of states in a globalising world, and the challenge this presents to the new South African state. Some lessons have emerged from various experiences about the kind of overt and covert subversion that developing countries can be subjected to. Not least of these is the concrete expression of the clamour for Africa's resources and the power of transnational corporations in global economics and politics. How do we protect the integrity of our democratic state under such conditions?
The post-September 11 situation evinces ascendancy of right-wing forces in developed countries, characterised among other features, by unilateralism, shameless pursuit of interests of capital, and xenophobia. In addition, we need to note a tendency towards the emergence of new global centres of power such as the European Union, the US, Japan and China - with all kinds of contradictions among them.
Programme of National Democratic Transformation
The section dealing with transformation of the state and governance needs to underline the central role of local government.
Among the qualitative advances made since 1997 is the integrated functioning of government and possibilities to implement far-reaching integrated development programmes in rural and urban areas. This also relates to the broader question of spatial development and de-racialisation of South African society.
A Social Accord has become a possibility, and by the time of Conference, decisive progress may have been made. This may require more than fleeting reference as is currently the case in the Strategy and Tactics document. Further, in the economic area, the introduction of micro-economic reforms and the broader issue of a growth and development strategy may require specific reference.
In the social sector, a matter that has loomed larger than outlined in the Strategy and Tactics document (currently referred to as "campaigns against epidemics") is that of HIV/AIDS. Does it require specific reference in the document?
The critical issue of the ideological struggle, as part of the challenge of transformation of society requires due emphasis. This applies to matters of media, education and arts and culture, and the role that the democratic movement and the state should play in this regard, to build truly South African consciousness, identity and values.
Gender
The 1997 Strategy and Tactics states that the ANC, informed and driven by its understanding of the oppressive gender relations that exist both within and independently of class, national and other contradictions, integrates a gendered perspective in its outlook. It looks at the relationship between men and women, how our society is structured along gender lines and the impact of these relations in the whole society. The context in which gendered relationships emerge and the constantly shifting economic, political and social terrain is recognised. The ANC is therefore committed to ensuring a gendered perspective in its analysis, policies, programmes, strategies, values and principles. It is poised to ensure non-sexism and the transformation of gender relations in all spheres of life in our society. Key to its approach is the challenge of affirming and empowering particularly African rural and poor women, as they still largely remain the worst victims of patriarchy and the legacy of CST. (Strategy and Tactics, 1997).
While the 1997 Mafikeng Conference therefore took an express decision that gender be integrated into all aspects of the Strategy and Tactics and while the above is a clear commitment, in reading Strategy and Tactics it is obvious that a gender edit of a finished document was done resulting in a "gender patchwork" without proper theoretical framework.
The absence of a theoretical framework weakens not only Strategy and Tactics, but permeates throughout our analysis, policy formulations and programmes. Above all, it denies us a tool not only of analysis but also of monitoring and evaluating our policies and progress on our path to a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist society.
Matters of formulation
There are many detailed matters of formulation that an agreement to introduce substantive amendments would bring to the fore. Besides challenges of a thorough language edit which may be necessary to clarify and simplify some of the concepts, examples include:
Conclusion
Discussion on whether these issues warrant a redrafting or rewriting of the Strategy and Tactics document should be conducted against the backdrop of the description of Strategy and Tactics in earlier sections of this discussion document. Among the issues to be kept in mind are:
It should also be noted that the Political and Organisational Reports of the NEC, presented by the President and Secretary-General respectively, are meant to capture major developments and current challenges. These, and the resolutions of Conference then inform the interpretation of the Strategy and Tactics document.
However, it will be critical to examine the Strategy and Tactics document in detail to make a determination on this matter. A critical consideration in this regard should be that formulations in the document should not become a break on possible political and organisational advances. Nor should they ignore tactical and strategic shifts that may have happened, and thus render the document irrelevant.
It is also important to avoid cluttering a Strategy and Tactics document with so much current detail that it loses much of its relevance within a short period. A useful device (used in some instances to accommodate important new issues) may be to draft a brief and pointed "Preface to the 2002 Edition" which would bring into perspective such developments and/or draw attention to any critical omissions.
An assessment of the balance of forces is part of the process that must inform our discussions on Strategy and Tactics towards Conference. Any balance of forces is dynamic and evolving, influenced by changing objective and subjective factors. This understanding of the balance of forces enables the liberation movement to make decisive interventions from time to time to propel the struggle forward.
This discussion paper will first give an overview of the balance of forces in 1997. It examines the major developments that have occurred over the last five years and the (subjective) actions of the democratic movement to shift the balance of forces. Finally, we raise some of the challenges -objective and subjective - in each centre of power, which face us as we prepare for 51st National Conference. At the end, we must determine how these shifts and challenges in the balance of forces entail the need for amendments to our Strategy and Tactics
PART 1: Overview of the last five years
The Balance of forces in 1997
The Strategy and Tactics adopted by the 50th National Conference in 1997, made the following observations on the balance of forces:
1999 - Continuity and Change
While the assessment of the S&T document remained relevant, the advent of the 1999 elections posed a number of tactical and strategic questions about shifts in the balance of forces and opportunities for more rapid advance. This was captured by the approach adopted by January 1999 NEC meeting as the dynamic of "continuity and change": continuity in the substance of policy and change in the detail as well as style, pace and effectiveness of implementation.
We concluded that conditions had ripened for a bold and faster pace of transformation during the following five years. We therefore needed to move with speed in implementing some of the decisive steps during the first year. On the basis of this assessment, the election message included the theme of accelerating change. This broadly found resonance among the people, resulting in a bigger electoral majority.
We thus - following the 1999 elections - took decisive action on a number of strategic fronts, including:
- Improving our mastery of parliamentary work as a platform to advance transformation, instead of ceding this terrain to the opposition;
- Greater coherence in the functioning of government through the introduction of clusters and movement towards joint planning and implementation;
- A new approach to the senior management of the public service including strategic handling of deployment and the introduction of integrated thinking and action;
- Greater intervention by government to help speed up the rate of investment and job creation; reflected in the micro economic reforms announced by Cabinet, and the shift toward a more expansionary fiscal stance.
- More systematic targeting of poverty through the implementation of the integrated sustainable rural development and urban renewal strategies; alongside the implementation of other programmes;
- Visible and effective intervention on crime with the creation of the Scorpions and changes in senior management of the SAPS, resulting in greater self confidence of the law enforcement agencies, alongside an integrated approach to criminal justice through its cluster; and
- The establishment of a democratic and non-racial sphere of local government, which, although lacking capacity particularly in the poorest areas, created the potential for accelerated transformation at local level.
Despite these advances, we were still faced with many challenges. These include:
More specifically, we asserted that we probably face our greatest challenge in the arena of the battle of ideas. We noted that this area is critical because even though we may have made progress in material terms, unless the forces for change are able to exercise hegemony, it will impact on our capacity to mobilise society around our programme for change, and ultimately on our ability to effect change and transformation.
We concluded that our engagement in this arena was in part hindered or facilitated by the availability or otherwise of instruments and cadres to wage this battle. And, notwithstanding the plethora of institutions (media, educational terrain, culture and arts, etc) doting the landscape, there are no centres and revolutionary cadres preoccupied with ideological struggle.
Strengthening the ANC as an Agent for change
The National General Council (NGC) in July 2000 was a landmark event, which reaffirmed the character of the ANC as a revolutionary movement for change. As the 'largest political school' of the movement it brought together for the first time since National Conference in 1997, branch delegates, veterans, leadership collectives and cadres from all walks of life who are working in different sectors.
The NGC, in assessing the new subjective weaknesses of the phase of governance, noted that amongst others, we have not yet mastered adequately the art of mass involvement in the process of governance and social transformation and the emergence of tendencies within the ANC to see positions in government as platforms for acquiring power and positions and divisions based on self-enrichment.
The NGC also reflected on progress with the implementation of policies. It noted that the first six years of freedom brought new rights, responsibilities and opportunities. However, we needed to do more to speed up the pace of change.
Arising from the NGC discussions and our approach of continuity and speeding up change, the following were identified as the (subjective) challenges facing the democratic movement in the organisational and governance spheres:
Organisational challenges: Activation of branches and members to serve as a vanguard of their communities; Strengthen the Tri-partite Alliance and build an active broad front for transformation; Involve the membership in the resolution of critical questions facing the organisation; Provide resources for, and ensure participation in, the cadre school programme; Improve ideological intervention by the ANC at all levels of discourse and formulation of policy; Examine the challenge of "modernisation" of the ANC both as a concept and in its practical application, in a manner that sustains and deepens the revolutionary character of the movement
Governance challenges: Improving the capacity of the state to meet its obligations to the citizens; Giving a spur to the drivers of economic growth and job-creation; Broaden access to social services and improve their quality; Build national identity and a new morality; Improve international solidarity and contribute to building a better Africa and a better world.
Building branches as vanguards of communities
The 1994 and 1997 National Conference, adopted the broad principle that we should align our constitutional structures to correspond with each sphere of government. Whereas after 1994 we completed this process with regards provinces, the process at regional and local level only started after the implementation of the new system of local government in 2000.
We thus since the beginning of 2001, embarked on a major process of realignment of the ANC branches and regions. The objective of this programme was to align our structures at these spheres to enable us to give leadership to governance and delivery; to build branches as vanguards of communities and reassert the centrality of the branch in the structure of the ANC and to through participation of the members, addressed problems that have plagued a number of our provinces. Though the process was slower than envisaged, we have by-and-large achieved the main objectives, which was strengthened with our declaration of 2002 as the Year of the Volunteer for Reconstruction and Development.
Shifts in opposition politics
The last eight years have seen a number of shifts in opposition politics, such as the disappearance of some former homeland-based parties, the consolidation of others in specific areas (e.g. the UCDP in North West, IFP in KZN, UDM in E Cape). Amongst historical white parties the base of the far right has been significantly eroded.
Another important development during this period was our cooperation with the IFP, with whom we share a social base, for peace and development. This was reflected by the participation of the IFP in the Government of National Unity, by our participation in the IFP-led Government of Provincial Unity in KZN and cooperation in government after 1999 at both these levels. The cooperation was also characterised by organisational interaction in the form of the three-asides and engagements between the ANC Youth and Women's League and the IFP Youth and Women's Brigades.
The cooperation has ensured the significant reduction of violence in KZN (and Gauteng). The cooperation, however, has not been without its problems, around such issues as the role of the institution of traditional leadership in the new system of democratic local governance, the coalition agreement with the province, the seat of the province and so forth. There have also been the overtures between the IFP and the DA in the province, reflected for example in coalition governments in a number of municipalities in the province, after the 2000 local elections.
The tactical mistake by the NNP to leave the GNU in 1996 meant that it was cast into the political wilderness and during the 1999 elections campaign, the DP usurped its 'swart gevaar' tactics, and it lost significant ground to them. Losing many of its public representatives to the DP and other parties, it entered into an unholy alliance with the DP to form the Democratic Alliance, excluding the ANC from governance in the W Cape even though we won a majority. The DA jointly contesting local elections in 2000. This development resulted in the significant polarisation of politics along racial lines.
The opportunity presented by the break-up of the DA to break this mold of racial politics were correctly grasped by the ANC and thus the cooperation with the NNP, in government and in all spheres of society, towards nation-building and improving the lives of all South Africans.
PART 2:
Eradicating the legacy of racism, sexism, colonialism and apartheid
On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the ANC, the January 8 statement challenged the democratic forces to look forward to the tasks we have to accomplish during the critical decade that will take us to the Centenary of the ANC. The guiding principle, it said, is the objective to move forward decisively to eradicate the legacy of racism, sexism, colonialism and apartheid based on the vision of the Freedom Charter.
To achieve this goal in the next ten years, 51st Conference must set bold, but realistic goals that prioritise the most important aspects of social activity, ensuring that we move forward in a balanced and integrated manner. An assessment of the challenges (both objective and subjective) facing us in each of the key centres of power will be key to enable us to be bold where possible or otherwise to take the necessary measures to shift the balance in favour of our strategic objective.
Transforming the State and Governance:
We inherited an apartheid colonial state, which was illegitimate and structured to serve the interests of a white minority. To perpetuate itself, it relied on repressive apparatus on a massive scale and on an aggressive policy towards its neighbors. It used public resources to buy off collaborative strata from amongst the black majority through its Bantustan, Tricameral parliament and black local authority policies.
The democratic state, in contrast, is legitimate and serves the interests of the overwhelming majority. It is based on a democratic constitution, a culture of human rights and openness. It seeks to use public resources to better the lives of the majority, especially the poor. It is determined to root out corruption and criminality; and it does not rely on buying off sectors or groups to win their allegiance. It pursues the interests of the motive forces of change; and it strives in many respects to become a state of the whole people.
The democratic state is also developmental in its character. This means that it is a state that uses the resources available to it to ensure the progressive redistribution of wealth in the interest of the poor and disadva ntaged. It should put in place regulatory and other mechanisms that not only seek to obviate market failure, but seek also to transform the structure of markets in the interests of the poor and marginalised, and also afford the state the capacity to intervene in a pro-active way to facilitate growth and redistribution. The fiscal and monetary policies it thus pursues should not only be mutually consistent, but also help facilitate its prime objectives.
Growth and development require capital investments; and these reside primarily in private hands. Therefore, a developmental state has to define and regulate its interaction with private capital in such a way that mutual benefit can be derived. This includes an industrial policy that helps to direct private capital into critical sectors; and a labour market policy that prevents super-exploitation and encourages skills development and work-place democracy. It includes offering aspirant black capitalists opportunities, which in fact encourage the expansion of this class. A developmental state should also be able to strike the correct balance between state ownership of productive forces and private ownership, guided, inter alia, by the prerogatives of strategic interest, efficiency, technology-transfer, affordability of services and narrow cost-benefit considerations.
In 1997, three years after the democratic breakthrough, the South African state still did not reflect, in its composition, practical realisation of doctrines and broadly the capacity to carry out its multifaceted functions -the social classes and strata that pursue social transformation. It was thus a state in transition.
Strategy and Tactics (1997) therefore stated that amongst the strategic tasks of the NDR is to strengthen the hold of the democratic movement over state power, and to transform the state machinery to serve the cause of social transformation: The levers of state power include the legislatures, the executives, the public service, the security forces, the judiciary, parastatals, the public broadcaster, and so on. Control by democratic forces means that these institutions should operate on the basis of the precepts of the Constitution; they should be guided by new doctrines; they should reflect in their composition the demographics of the country; and they should owe allegiance to the new order.
In line with the Programmatic challenges to transform the state in the current phase, we must therefore review progress in the eight years through our Policy Review process, to address the following issues:-
The Economy
The centre-piece of our programme for the economy, says Strategy and Tactics (1997) is the pursuit of growth and development. We must do this by increasing the wealth base of the country in the same measure as we improve the quality of life of especially the poor. We must effect, in a variety of ways, the redistribution of wealth and income in favour of those previously excluded from the economic mainstream.
The Mafikeng resolution on the Economy reaffirmed the overarching objectives of our economic transformation programme as a competitive, fast growing and developing economy which creates sufficient jobs for all those seeking work; redistribution of wealth, income and opportunities in favour of the poor and historically disadvantaged, a society in which basic services are available to all, an environment where homes are secure and places of work productive and the popular involvement and participation of all South Africans in the economy and in economic decisions.
The economy remains characterised by the skewed evolution of capitalism, which characterises all colonial economies. It emerged on the foundation of mineral extraction and relied heavily on this for many decades. On the other, it was founded on the tradition of big imperial companies and later Afrikaner capital which speedily developed, or was co-opted, into the courtyard of monopoly capital. The development of a manufacturing base especially in the 1950s and 60s was underpinned by the large mining houses, along which had emerged a financial sector, which was part of the same circle.
The state also became an instrument to accumulate, utilise and allocate capital in the interest of the white community in general and the white Afrikaner sections in particular. The farming sector and small and medium enterprises among whites were also in the main beholden to an evolving state monopoly capitalism. Their growth and successes were achieved in the same measure as any real or potential accumulation in the black communities was suppressed.
The economy in our country is thus characterised by a highly centralised and concentrated system of ownership, overwhelmingly in white hands. BEE has not started to dent this. The same applies in large measure to SMME's. Over the years, the growth of the black section of the working class and, in a limited way; the middle strata has created an army of savers who by sheer numbers have become a significant though largely latent force in the financial terrain. There are also many new trends including the mergers among large financial institutions and, as with the mining conglomerates in the 1980s, movement towards their positioning internationally as global players that transcend the regulatory apparatus of the nation-state.
South African capital can thus be disaggregated as follows: large private, and increasingly globally accountable, conglomerates in the productive and financial spheres; large institutional capital such as pension and provident funds, most of it located in the above; state or public capital in the form of parastatals and the fiscus itself; and small-scale community and cooperative/social capital.
In the context of these objectives, our discussions and Policy review process will have to address, amongst other things:
The impact of our transformation programmes on the key challenges of economic and social inequality, poverty, employment, growth, investment, trade and macro economic indicators.
What are the focused efforts necessary to create employment, increase economic opportunities for the mass of black people and improve the lives of the poor? How do we increase investment by both the private and public sector? What progress with sectoral strategies and particularly the growth sectors identified to create opportunities for growth and employment creation? Does the draft Industrial/Manufacturing strategy and the micro economic reforms effectively address these goals?
What further or new strategies should be put in place that will lead to accelerated economic growth? What role should the state in particular play?
Are we making progress in addressing social problems that hinder growth such as the apartheid spatial policy, urban and rural sprawl, human resource shortages and safety and security?
What targeted strategies do we need to mobilise the motive forces around our programmes of economic growth, development and redistribution? What are the concrete tasks facing the different Alliance partners in working and mobilising for growth and development; leading the programme to build national consensus and buy-in through a social accord and the role of the Alliance to mobilise other forces in support of such an accord.
What are the concrete tasks of the ANC and each of its alliance partners to engage with capital towards increased investment for growth, in support of black economic empowerment and NEPAD; using structures such as the Presidential working groups, the Millennium Labour Council, NEDLAC, Alliance campaigns and various provincial and LED processes?
Arena of the battle of ideas
Our transition to democracy and efforts to change people's material conditions take place in a national context where the opposing forces in the NDR seek to assert their ideas and to win society over to their points of view. Both sides try to do this using the various instruments of ideological contest at our disposal as a society - including the media, culture and the arts, education and knowledge production/research and other socialising institutions such as the family, religion, tradition and so forth. It includes the battle for ideas about and within the various levers of power under control of the democratic forces.
Since the legitimacy of our transition to democracy and our programme to create a better life for all is difficult to contest head-on by forces opposed to change; they have been using all sorts of other deflectionary messages to undermine this programme.
Our transition also takes place in the context of a growing global information and knowledge society, which along with changes in forms of production in the developed world, undermine traditional approaches to politics and political organisation. This has seen the decline and increased individualisation not only of party political organisation in the West, but also in trade union organisation. Coupled with the growing values of self-advancement and individualism and a cynicism about 'politics and politicians', the citizenry in these countries have either turned towards more extreme political parties (as in France, Netherlands), disengaged from political participation or are joining civil movements organised around issues such as the environment or anti-globalisation.
The impact of this informationalism on the developing world is uneven. On the one hand new technologies meant that more people have access to televisions and to a lesser degree the Internet, thus the growth of international brands such as Coca Cola, Nike, Atomic Kitten or David Beckham and the dominance of the goings-on of the financial markets in our news. On the other hand, due to the lack of infrastructure (telecommunications and electricity), Africa still lags far behind and the vast majority of its population carve out a meagre existence, marginalised from this society.
In South Africa, with its two worlds in one country, there are marked differences. The overwhelming majority of Africa's Internet and telephone users are in South Africa. We have a vibrant print media and the efforts to deregulate the airways have led to greater diversification and access to radio and television. This means that the media plays a much greater role in informing and forming public opinion amongst a significant section of our populace.
Issues of ownership, control, transformation to address race, class and gender and media diversity are therefore as important as addressing our capacity as the democratic forces to communicate effectively. This includes the capacity to influence how the messages and content of our transformation are mediated through the media.
It also means strengthening our own instruments of communications as a democratic government and movement and not abdicating on the responsibility of modernising our organisation to ensure that we use direct contact and new technologies to communicate directly with our members, different sectors and the broader public.
Our programme to transform education is not only addressing access to and the quality of education, but also education as a socialisation institution for the transmission of new values, national identity and our constitutional order of democracy, non-racialism, non-sexism, human rights and equality -through initiatives such as values in education, civic education and the teaching of history projects. Decisive steps have been introduced to transform research institutions of the state and the higher education landscape, so that knowledge production too is geared towards the transformation project.
Unfortunately, due to pressing demands on the fiscus to reduce the apartheid social backlog, we have not been able to allocate as much resources as we wish to the development of culture, heritage and the arts. Despite this limitation, important initiatives such as the National Film Trust, support to community arts and theatre, and various heritage projects are playing an important role in defining ourselves as a nation. In addition, the entrepreneurial activities of young musicians, producers, designers, poets, sculptors, comedians, writers have unleashed not only a flurry of activity asserting a distinct African identity, but also points to the large pool of untapped talent in our country.
Post-NGC we have taken concrete steps to improve internal communications through organs such as ANC Today and through the report backs in RGC's by the NEC. However, clearly much more needs to be done to improve our capacity to communicate effectively.
Creating a better Africa and World
Whereas the world is currently under the dominant sway of the capitalist system, with a growing divide between the rich North and the predominantly poor South and notwithstanding the recent setbacks suffered by the social democratic parties in Europe and the resurgence of the right-wing parties, we must continue and redouble our efforts to create a better climate for the pursuit of social transformation in our country, Africa and the rest of the world. Globalisation, in its structure and manifestations provide both opportunities and threats to our quest to build a better Africa, a more equitable and just world order and our own national project.
And, whereas during the late 80's and early 90's the neo-liberal proponents of globalisation hailed their world view as having won once and forever (hailing the end of history!), the Asian crisis of the mid-90's have shaken this ideological certainty and arrogance in prescribing policies to the developing world. So have the changes in capitalism in the very backyard of the West, including the mobility of transnational corporations in search of cheap labour, the increased use of technologies and the pressures their own calls for free trade placed on a number of their domestic industries. As a result, Western governments are increasingly faced with and indeed bow to pressures from their electorate about rising unemployment, keeping cheap immigrant labour out, and keeping or introducing new protectionist measures for industries.
At the same time, Africa is taking important steps to position herself to achieve her renaissance. The moves towards greater regional integration, the efforts for Africa to resolve her own conflicts, the formation of the African Union and the support for NEPAD among our people, countries in Africa and the world, are important steps taken by the continent towards creating a more positive environment. This does not mean that there are no problems, constraints and challenges that still remain and can and will attempt to derail our endeavours.
The anti-globalisation movement has played no small part in putting the issues of a more just world order on the front pages and in the headlines of the world and national media. We need to engage with these to ensure that they understand our standpoint as South Africa, Africa and the South and, further, to ensure that these remain consistently progressive. Of course, social movements cannot become substitutes for an ideologically coherent and cohesive political movement, which is an instrument for the advancements of the interests of the poor and working people all over the world.
There is therefore more space for balanced debate about the range of policy options to address underdevelopment, economic growth, job creation and inequality.
A serious challenge to the international progressive forces has been created in the aftermath of September 11th. The global war against terrorism has created the intensification of war rhetoric and the increase of war budgets and resources. This has created space for certain countries to take unilateral decisions of the deepest implication for global peace and security and for the war against poverty and underdevelopment. Rather than intensify the war against terrorism, this has created ripe conditions for more violence and strife and the undermining of national sovereignty of poorer countries.
Unity of our people
Revolutions are about the mobilisation of the greatest possible masses of people to engage in their own liberation. The primary mission of the ANC therefore was, and remains, to mobilise all the classes and strata that objectively stand to gain from the success of the cause of social change. It is also called upon to win over to its side those who previously benefited from the system of apartheid: to persuade them to appreciate that their long-term security and comfort are closely tied up with the security and comfort of society as a whole.
In pursuit of this mission, the movement during its 90 years engaged in a range of tactics:-
This mission remains as relevant after as before 1994. However, the terrain in which the movement takes forward this task has changed. In the past we mobilised and united the motive forces, struggled alongside our strategic alliance partners, built and engaged sectoral formations and built broad issue-based fronts primarily as an extra-parliamentary national liberation movement;
Today, the ANC remains a mass-based liberation movement, which organises the people in their daily struggles for transformation, but is also the governing party, elected by those masses to lead the programmes of government.
This new situation presented us with immense opportunities to engage mass sectoral organisations, NGO's and other formations. These range from our approach to governance, which provide opportunities for participation in policy, legislation and implementation to the creation of statutory organs of people's participation such as IDP's SGB's, CPFs, ward committees and so forth.
The new situation also resulted in a reconfiguration of how we view various power centres in society. Whereas before the democratic forces were almost exclusively found in the extra-parliamentary sphere, contesting other centres of power from this position, after 1994 we occupied all centres. Our position as both a ruling party and a mass based movement, imposes certain objective problems in our relation to civil society. For example, many civil society campaigns are explicitly aimed at lobbying or changing government policy. How does the ANC relate to such campaigns?
The progressive component of civil society (the mass sectoral formations, the unions, the liberation movement and the Alliance, some NGO's, religious formations and so forth) were weakened considerably after 1994; because of the exodus of cadres to government, funding problems and difficulty with defining their role in the new situation.
Despite these setbacks, the advent of democracy created an enabling environment for the flourishing of civil society and the progressive component thereof, which remain a vibrant part of our society. In addition to traditional mass democratic formations such as SASCO, COSAS, SANCO, CONTRALESA, professional bodies, etc and democratic NGO's, there have evolved a range of other organisations over the last few years. These include former NGO's who were regarded as part of the other side and have transformed or are being transformed.
We have also seen the evolution of new issue-based organisations such as the TAC, Jubilee 2000, the BIG Coalition, and local community structures such as the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee and others. These issues-based organisations mobilise around genuine grievances in particular communities or sectors, yet tend to do this in opposition to the democratic government and often the ANC, because of subjective weaknesses on our side or because we have left a vacuum.
The context of a constitution that provides a framework for gender equality and a programme of government that seek to eradicate gender discrimination and oppression, have seen the flourishing of women's organisations, groups and networks - organising around both practical and strategic gender needs. However, as a result also of our own weaknesses, we failed to give leadership to the broad women's movement and to the Women's National Coalition, with our women members participating in the plethora of women's structures mainly in their individual capacity.
Particular sectors such as the religious community and the institutions of traditional leadership continue to play an important role in lives of the majority of our people. The new situation too has resulted in great possibilities not only for the recognition and freedom for all religions and the integration of the institutional leadership into our system of governance, but for these formations and institutions to play a profound role in shaping and contributing to the RDP of the soul, our sense of national identity and addressing the needs of the poorest and most marginalised amongst our people. Here too we need to emphasise the role of the sporting and recreation movement in contributing to the building of national identity and new values.
Our failure as the movement to engage civil society effectively has resulted in attempts by various forces (including the right and the ultra left) to appropriate civil society often with an agenda to build an opposition to the movement. Furthermore, failure in the Alliance to properly conceptualise and act on our resolution to build a broad movement for transformation has meant that COSATU and the SACP have to fight battles within a range of these civil society forums to hold at bay anti-ANC and anti-statist sentiments. More often than not, the ANC is either absent or excluded to engage with such forces on its programmes and the tactical choices we made as we implement the programme of national democratic transformation.
This, amongst other things, has resulted in such civil society forums mainly becoming anti-government platforms, instead of focusing on the role of civil society in the process of reconstruction and development. In the absence of strategic and political engagement from the ANC, civil society is more and more becoming an opponent, rather than a partner, of government
The developments post-1994 also affected the ANC itself. On the one hand, the masses of our people, and the motive forces in particular, maintained their confidence in the capacity of the movement to lead the struggle for a better life, returning it with a greater majority in each election. On the other hand, its capacity to maintain its branch structures, engage and lead the Alliance, to give leadership to sectoral formations and broader society too were undermined by funding and the exodus to government. In addition, the terrain of governance with its possibilities for patronage introduced a range of anti-people behaviour amongst its cadres including corruption and using positions in the movement to access resources, which impacted on the very character of the movement.
The new terrain also impacted on our strategic Alliance with the SACP and COSATU. Whereas this Alliance was at the forefront of bringing about the democratic breakthrough of 1994, it has seen serious lack of cohesion and the relationship has often been marked more by conflict than by cooperation over the last few years. This has been in part because of the objective situation in which each of the partners found themselves: the ANC as liberation movement and ruling party; the SACP having to rebuild itself and define its approach to the struggle for socialism following 40 years of illegality and the collapse of the socialist community of states; and COSATU faced with changes in the organisation of production and work, and the impact of the restructuring of the economy and state on its members.
The Tripartite Alliance forms the core of the revolutionary forces of the NDR. This core is led by the ANC, as the representative of all the classes and strata that stand to gain from the victory and consolidation of the NDR. The ANC's leadership of the TPA does not derive from pursuing the narrow interests of a particular class or stratum, but rather the ability to unite these forces of change in practice, with emphasis on the interests of the poor. In the same vein, working class leadership of the NDR means, among others, articulation of its own far-sighted positions and at the same time defining a common platform for all the forces interested in democratic transformation.
Such class leadership is exercised critically through active participation in the ranks of the ANC and the rest of the mass democratic movement. It is leadership that should also find expression in the ability boldly to explain a given balance of forces and how to shift it. This demands the confidence and honesty to convince the workers about twists and turns in the practical conduct of struggle. Similarly, the principles of revolutionary working class organisation dictate that members of the SACP and COSATU should take active part at various levels of the ANC. At the same time, each of the leaders of the SACP and COSATU are, as members of the ANC, ANC leaders in their own right.
The unity of the Alliance is thus a strategic goal - which we need to work at all the time - to ensure that we have the cohesion to carry out the responsibilities and tasks of the NDR, often in the face of a sustained offensive against change. By defending our unity, we defend the fundamental forces required to bring about that change.
The challenges facing us therefore as we prepare for 51st Conference include:-
Strengthening the ANC, its unity and its capacity to mobilise the motive forces and to use the various centres of power to bring about a better life for all our people;
Defining the key tasks of the NDR in the current period, the role of each Alliance partner in taking forward the tasks identified and to then implement a programme of the Alliance, jointly and individually, to take forward the tasks of transformation in each centre of power, in pursuit of the objectives of the NDR;
Strengthen our capacity to do work and engage with sectoral formations, NGO's towards building a broad movement for transformation.
Conclusion - what implications for Strategy and Tactics and our programme for the next five years?
The balance of forces suggests that despite the objective constraints and objective weaknesses we face, there are possibilities to advance more rapidly to ensure that our transformation is thorough-going.
The main challenge remains to maintain the character of the ANC as a revolutionary movement capable of leading the alliance and the broader democratic movement, and exercising power in all centres; mobilising progressive forces on the continent for Africa's renaissance and the international community in support of a better world.
To carry out these tasks, as we said at the NGC, will require much more concerted efforts to develop and sustain the New Cadre, who will be capable, not only to understand and carry out the tasks of transformation wherever they are, but who sees the link between their narrow sectoral tasks and the broader project of social transformation.
The decade-long objective we have set for ourselves also raises the question whether we should, in our governance, whilst maintaining the drive of integrated development, identify a number of key areas that becomes the drivers of our efforts to eradicate the legacy of apartheid, colonialism, racism and sexism.
Finally, though we may not effect major amendments to the Strategy and Tactics, we certainly need to ensure that the strategic tasks of the NDR are more clearly elaborated, so that cadres and members wherever they are understand them and are able to implement them in a manner consistent with our ten-year objective.
It will also require that the NEC elected at Conference develops an implementation plan that will give effect to the tasks outlined in the S&T and to ensure that it engage with the Alliance and the broad democratic forces to ensure joint implementation of such tasks
Objectives of social transformation
The creation of a non-racial, non-sexist, and democratic society, is about the liberation of the Africans in particular, and black people in general from political and economic bondage, and uplifting the quality of life of all South Africans, the majority of whom are African and female. The Strategy and Tactics (1997) therefore states that 'the central aim of transformation is to improve the conditions of the people, especially the poor."
Poverty, said the RDP, is the single greatest burden of South Africa's people. Attacking poverty and deprivation is therefore the first priority of the democratic government. This objective should be realised through a process of empowerment, which gives the poor control over their lives and increases their ability to mobilise sufficient development resources, including from the democratic government where necessary.
The Reconstruction and Development Programme strategy for meeting basic needs therefore rest on four pillars:
Creating opportunities for all South Africans to develop their full potential;
Boosting production and household income through job creation, productivity and efficiency, improving conditions of employment, and creating opportunities for all to sustain themselves;
Improving living conditions through better access to basic physical and social services, health care, and education and training for urban and rural communities; and
Our programme for social transformation must therefore ensure that it builds a better life by providing land and houses, comprehensive health and social security, basic services which include water and sanitation, human resource and capacity building, clean and safe environment, food security, and an improvement in their health profile, including dealing with communicable an non-communicable diseases, causes of mortality, and sports and recreation.
Social transformation must also ensure the development of a South African identify, which draws from the multiplicity of talent and heritage, to reflect an African nation on the southern tip of the African Continent. Critical to nation building is the de-racialisation of our society.
Transformation must also lead to the elimination of patriarchal relations. We must address the socially constructed "gender roles" that conspired to degrade women and treat them as sub-human. Such a nation must therefore not only affirm gender equality, but must also ensure that it is lived in practice by all South Africans, and finds expression in all policies and programmes of the nation.
Social Transformation and Mafikeng Conference
In the build up to the 1997 National Conference, we acknowledged that our policies had just been put to test in the arena of governance and legislation, and that what Mafikeng should do was largely to fill gaps in the policy area, and to focus on implementation. The resolutions on Social Transformation from Mafikeng therefore mainly address these gaps or matters of implementation. Our Elections Manifestos 1999 and for local government in 2000 also set out clear programmes of the priorities for government during this term of office.
The work done around the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), is an acknowledgement that we must build partnerships on the continent to address the challenges of poverty and underdevelopment, which is as much a reality of South Africa, as it is for the rest of the continent. Our programmes for social transformation therefore also takes place in a regional and continental context.
The subsequent National General Council (2000) also elaborated on issues of implementation, and concentrated on how this could be strengthened. These two conferences confirmed our policies in general, but both of did not have enough implementation experience to be able to assess whether the policies were indeed correct, or even whether they needed to be supplemented or changed if they did not have the desired effects due to factors such as the change in the balance of forces, both globally and internally, the unforeseen and unintended consequences, or any other valid reason for such policy chance.
The task of 51st Conference is therefore to do a clear assessment of how far we have advanced in our social transformation agenda, using the vantage point of our having gone through at least eight years of experience of the interface and interaction between policy and implementation.
Fighting poverty
Attacking poverty and thus bridging the gap between South Africa's 'two nations' have been at the centre of all government's policies and programmes since 1994. The Poverty Alleviation Framework of the Cabinet Social Sector Cluster therefore covers a variety of strategies to address the causes and symptoms of poverty. These include the following programmatic areas:
Meeting basic needs
COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH CARE: Provision of health care to our people continues to face major challenges. The Mafikeng conference noted the strides made in the transformation of our health system based on the primary health care approach. The National General Council (2000) also highlighted the need to take a more detailed look at how comprehensive our health system is and begin to take a handle on what the health status of communities is.
Poverty, the lack of education and environmental degradation are recognized as being the major determinants of health. These four factors alone and in combination, constitute perhaps the greatest challenge to humankind. The link between ill health and poverty exists as a fact of life in every country in the world, more so when social support structures are weak or non-existent.
The virtuous circle between social investment, health and economic prosperity has thus been demonstrated in a variety of settings, yet an influential body of contrary opinion continues to exist on both sides of the traditional North-South divide. This assertion that social development takes place at the expense of economic growth and that the latter should precede the former, is not helpful since it presents a false dichotomy. It also implies that life begins at a particular level of GDP.
Our policy of Primary Health Care captures the essence of this approach, and the clustering of government departments is a major step, because for good health, we need synergies between education, housing, food security and nutrition. With the increasing importance of emerging and re-emerging diseases, this approach becomes pivotal in the attainment of our health goals.
We have registered significant progress through PHC as part of the anti-poverty strategy. There is however a need to establish hospitals that are modeled around the totality of the health needs of the country.
This means addressing several areas within the system relating to major causes of mortality, communicable and non-communicable diseases, quality of care, human resource development, the health problems related to tobacco, alcohol and substance abuse, and public health issues in relation to provision of water for domestic use, sanitation and rapid response to disease outbreaks.
A number of achievements have been made and are dealt with under each of the sections. Generally there have been constraints, mainly related to the crosscutting nature of some issues e.g. the quality of health care depends to a large extent on the level of coordination and integration of service delivery with other government departments.
Patterns of mortality and morbidity: South Africa faces a triple burden - namely diseases of poverty that are largely infectious, ill health as a result of intentional and unintentional injuries and diseases of lifestyle. Persistent poverty makes it difficult to eradicate problems of malnutrition like kwashiorkor, TB and other diseases that need good nutritional status to enable the body to fight. This compounds current interventions against the scourges of HIV and AIDS. In the area of lifestyle diseases tobacco smoking is a leading cause of lung cancer and thus remains a burden. The long-term effects of our legislation against tobacco smoking will be felt fully in years to come. There is however evidence showing a decrease in young people taking up smoking.
The fact that we are society in transition characterized by increasing urban migration and disengagement from traditional family support structures compounds some of these problems. The changes in the patterns of diet and the stresses associated with this lead among others to heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. Given the legacy of our past and the violent nature of apartheid, issues of mental health and mental illnesses have become more recognizable problems.
Alcohol and substance abuse pose a serious threat to the health resources that we have. Studies show that more than 50% of violent deaths (particularly homicide and road accidents) have raised alcohol blood levels. There are ongoing programmes aimed at reducing substance abuse. There is however a trend showing a continued decrease in violent deaths among the youth. But reports of increased violence against children and women are a major concern. A major limitation in the area of unnatural deaths is conflicting data we have on the extent of the problem. Currently a validation study is being undertaken and Statistics South Africa is helping to develop a national surveillance system that will assist in the proper analysis of the data in future.
These patterns of mortality and morbidity dictate that our response must be multi-sectoral. It is important that whilst we continue to deal with pressing challenges, that we set a platform both in prevention and curative programme that enables us to deal with the totality of challenges we face.
Integrated Food Security and Nutrition: Food insecurity affects mostly the poor and is related to issues of land hunger, environmental degradation, water pollution in rivers and poor housing settlements, resulting in the inability to utilize these resources for food production. In line with other anti-poverty initiatives, an Integrated Food Security and Nutrition Strategy has been developed and will be debated, which include issues around the primary school nutrition programme, food fortification, community gardens and land reform to ensure food production by small scale farmers. The Special Programme for Food Security will bring together all relevant government departments.
Maternal and Child Health issues: Government has prioritized women and children, amongst the vulnerable groups. The policy of free healthcare for pregnant mothers and children under six years has been an important intervention. During our Demographic Health Survey (DHS), antenatal clinic attendance by pregnant mothers stood at 94%, a major jump compared to previous studies. Antenatal coverage is now very high with 80% of deliveries now being conducted in the presence of skilled birth attendants. Furthermore, we have instituted a system of confidential enquiries into maternal deaths since 1997, which enables us to identify preventable causes of deaths and take corrective action. Our maternal health programmes also deal with the issues of breast and cervical cancer.
The policy of free health services for children under six years has paid off. Children now present early to health facilities and when they are less seriously ill. There is also a decrease in vaccine preventable diseases like measles, tetanus etc. We are well on the way to meeting the global target for polio eradication and we have eradicated wild measles. However AIDS related diseases like TB are on the increase. The problem of alcohol abuse is evident in certain areas of the country as evidenced by children presenting with Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. The Northern Cape has a very high rate of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome with 10% of school entry children exhibit signs of the condition. Researchers in this region also report an increased incidence of 'squint' eyes, which they attribute to FAS. The problem is not limited to the Northern Cape and calls for conference to debate and consider the question of legislating on alcohol advertising.
Malnutrition is a major concern especially among children and the elderly. The prevalent poor nutritional status is closely related to the issue of food insecurity. The ability for sick people to respond to treatment is also influenced by poverty and hunger. The inability to comply with a regimen to take medicines is therefore linked to these issues. Discussions and preparations are afoot to introduce legislation on food fortification. An integrated approach is being taken at the Social Sector Cluster level between government departments.
The debate over the school nutrition programme brings to attention the need to ensure continuity of it whilst resolving the issues about coordinating departments, to make sure that children benefit from the programme and that no child goes hungry while attending class.
The policy of termination of pregnancy remains a challenge. There are reports of unsafe abortions still taking place, thus adding to maternal mortality rates not responding in the way we envisaged. Conference needs to examine what role communities can play in preventing unnecessary deaths. At the heart of the challenge is the resolution of the tension between rights of providers of services and the rights of choice of those who use our institutions.
HIV and AIDS: The Mafikeng Conference called for an ANC-led programme on AIDS awareness, which would be led by the President, and would be joined by the Alliance. The Mafikeng Resolution directed itself to a practice by the insurance industry, which prejudiced people living with AIDS and HIV. The resolution therefore centered around a campaign to ensure coverage by insurance companies and medical schemes, as well as opposition to pre-employment testing and an awareness campaign to remove prejudice.
Progress in implementing these resolutions are as follows:
Progress in the fight against Tuberculosis: All evidence points to an increase in TB caseload and TB mortality. This is not just a function of better reporting but also evident from patterns of hospital bed utilisation and also a reflection of the close interplay between TB and HIV infection. The ability of the health system to deal with HIV and AIDS is closely tied to the success we register in containing TB. Furthermore, robust and aggressive treatment of TB and opportunistic infections more generally is central to improvement of quality of lives of many.
Progress in the fight against TB has been registered through several programmes. These include a roll out of a system of recording cases of TB nationally, expansion of our DOTS programme and establishing Demonstration Training Districts. We are encouraged by the containment of Multi-Drug Resistant TB based on a recent survey that the department has done. We are now concentrating on stepping up the fight against TB.
Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs): There is general improvement in the overall fight against STIs with signs of a significant drop in incidence of syphilis. A national surveillance system is being put in place.
Health Care Delivery: The victory in the court case on the Medicines Act has opened possibilities for more affordable medicines to be available to a greater number of people. This has also been vindicated by the developments at the DOHA round of trade negotiations, which are consistent with the provisions of the Act.
The District Health System development has progressed well and issues of strengthening capacity at local level for provision of services will lend greater impetus. Ties with the S. A. Military Health Services are growing.
Quality of Care: The transformation of the health system continues with greater focus on the quality of care. There is a need for communities to participate in the governance structures of local health facilities to provide oversight on maintenance of quality and appropriate management of the facilities, observance of policy statements like Batho-Pele, support to health workers and ensuring that the communities take pride and protect the assets that are placed in their care.
The insufficient number of appropriately trained health workers to provide the services also compromises quality in many instances. The failure to fill up posts in some provinces hampers health care delivery. There needs to be greater interaction between government departments for the attainment of our goal of delivering good quality health care.
Issues of professionalism and the attitudes of our health workers is a challenge that the department is taking up with relevant stakeholders, in particular the health professional bodies. The key message is that a people mobilised and owning their institution are central to sustainable quality interventions in health care.
Human Resources in Health: The Mafikeng addressed itself to attempts to strengthen the human resource capacity of the health system through community service, the Cuban doctor programme, and the training of Black doctors. The resolution also called for the extension of the community service programme to other sectors. Progress with implementation is as follows:
However a number of challenges prevail: Foreign doctors almost exclusively service most of our hospitals in the rural areas of places like Eastern Cape, northern KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo. There is a persistent exodus of nurses and doctors from our public health system to either the private sector or mostly for overseas countries.
We propose that the following proposals be considered: We need to put in place incentives for health professionals to serve our rural areas. This may be in the form of subsidised housing, schooling for children, positive programmes for international exchange, flexible programme to allow for participation in Continuing Professional Development etc. The department is currently examining various approaches to this challenge. Creation of a special Education Human Resource Fund for the SADC region that will cater for undergraduate and postgraduate education and training.
National Health Insurance System: The Commission of Inquiry into a Comprehensive Social Security System has published its report for comment. This will create an overarching framework for the development of a Social Health Insurance. Work has commenced on Social Health Insurance.
WATER AND SANITATION: The provision of infrastructure goes beyond the concept of a "social wage", and contributes directly to the "better life" of our people, as measured by the key indicator of their health status. Good rural roads help reduce maternal mortality by ensuring that expectant mothers can get to clinics or hospitals to deliver their babies. The provision of electricity improves the air quality of homes and reduces lung diseases. Water and sanitation services do not just contribute to convenience and dignity, but make a direct contribution to reducing death and disease, particularly among children and vulnerable groups.
The government's decision to make provision of free water services to households and improvements in sanitation has brought an improvement to the struggle to better health by many families, especially the poor. There has been a noticeable increase in the provision of piped water to households - 9.3 million people have been served since 1994. Despite this progress there were cholera outbreaks in KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo. The major challenges remain to be mostly in informal settlements, rural areas that have not yet been catered for in terms of water provision and farm dwellings. Most of these areas have health facilities in the form of clinics or district hospitals and the challenge is to make sure that health facilities have uninterrupted water supplies. The momentum gained must be maintained. In addition to the more visible provision of water, households must be accompanied by adequate sanitation. Major steps have been taken in providing households and schools with proper sanitation.
To date 3.5 million people have been served since 1994. The pollution of rivers and streams continues to pose a serious health risk for communities that still have no access to clean piped water. Cholera, malaria and diarrhoeal diseases are therefore still prevalent. A major step was taken by Cabinet by assigning a lead department to coordinate sanitation activities and there is good progress. The programme is targeting, in addition to households, schools and the setting up of joint operational centers at provincial level as a rapid response to cholera outbreaks.
The challenge is to develop early warning systems and rapid response in cases of disease outbreaks. This requires that coordination between government departments and capacity at local government level is strengthened. This may possibly need to be part of the disaster management plans at local level.
Another challenge in the area of water provision is the issue of fluoridation with epidemiological surveys indicating that 70% of 6 year olds and 90% of adolescents experience dental decay. The implementation of a national fluoridation programme is facing some challenges. There has been a disturbing re-emergence of resistance against what is compelling public health imperative. We need to tackle this.
COMPREHENSIVE SOCIAL SECURITY: National Conference (1997) resolved that we should have an investigation into a comprehensive social security system. The Presidential Job Summit in 1998 also resolved a Basic Income Grant be investigated. In May 2000 government established a Commission of Enquiry to investigate and recommend options for an affordable system of social security, which prioritized the poorest and most vulnerable sectors.
The Commission report has been published and focuses on the issues of poverty and unemployment. The report confirmed that a significant proportion of our population live in poverty, with children being the most vulnerable. It noted that unemployment is increasing and that it is of a long-term structural nature. A significant proportion of the population falls through the existing safety nets, in particular children over the age of six years and unemployed adults, who by virtue of their age do not qualify for the Aged Persons Grant.
The Commission recommends a comprehensive package of support to address the various dimensions of poverty. Amongst the recommendations are the introduction of a universal basic income grant (BIG), prioritising the child grant, not to introduce a special grant for people living with HIV, but to instead strengthen the general system of grants.
Conference will have to discuss our approach to these issues, arising from its mandate to have this investigation. It needs to address amongst others, the following approaches:
Values underpinning our approach to comprehensive social security: Our evolving policy approach (RDP, Conference resolutions) to social security is located within our objectives of a people centred and a people driven process of development. We believe that people themselves have the creative capacity to improve their own circumstances and to contribute to the development of the country. The role of the state is to harness and build on these capacities by creating the enabling conditions. It is this understanding that saw us launching the year of the volunteer, the Letsema programme, under the slogan, "Vuk'uzenzele".
We are also guided by the belief that the state must take all reasonable measures with the means at its disposal to provide support to those who, through inevitable circumstances, are not in a position to do so. At the same time, our programmes should also strengthen the social institutions of the family, and community networks to provide care and support for the most vulnerable groups in our society, especially children, the chronically sick, the severely disabled and the older persons.
Within this framework and understanding is our view that our attack on poverty must be integrated and sustainable. Government has introduced a number of measures aimed at poverty eradication, and is now in the process of consolidating and integrating them. A comprehensive social security system is part of this integrated attack on poverty.
Our approach to poverty alleviation: The Commission report has raised debates about our approach to poverty alleviation. The approaches that emerged from these debates include expanding social pensions (introduction of BIG, expanding the child grant), improving government services to the poor (housing, infrastructure, education, health, etc) and support for greater productivity and incomes for the poor by increasing productive assets, job creation and skills development. The approach outlined in the RDP, and in the Poverty Alleviation Framework of the Cabinet Social Sector Cluster favours a balance between all three of these approaches.
Child Support Grant (CSG): The Child Support Grant was introduced in April 1998, with an initial slow take-up rate, which has increased rapidly over the last three years. The target is to reach a total of 3 million children. Amongst the problems affecting the reaching of this target is documentation to register children (birth certificates and IDs). Work is in progress with the Departments of Welfare, Health and Home Affairs to enable this problem to be address. The registration of children for the child grant is also an integral part of the home-based care/community-based care for children affected by HIV/AIDS. The question is whether we should increase the qualification age of 6 years, to cover greater numbers of children.
Safety and Security for the Aged: People over 60 years constitute 7% of the population, and this is expected to increase. The Aged Persons Grant reaches 68% of all persons over 60 years, and 80% of the eligible population (since it is means tested). The high levels of unemployment and the increase in the number of vulnerable children often mean that older persons use their grants to support the entire household.
The Ministerial committee on the Abuse, Neglect and Ill-treatment of Older persons presented its report to government in February 2001, revealing alarming levels of abuse and neglect by relatives, old age homes, communities, government officials and service providers. There has been some progress with the implementation of the committee's recommendations, including addressing problems faced by older persons in the payments of their grants, conducting an audit of old age homes, national guidelines by Health on the prevention, early detection and intervention in physical abuse, integrating elder abuse into the Victim Empowerment Programme and initiating new policies and legislation to promote and protect the rights of older persons.
Training for developmental social welfare: Since 1998, many child and youth care workers and probation officers have been trained in new approaches such as diversion and secure care, as part of the transformation of the Child and Youth Care system. The Poverty Relief Programme has also provided opportunity to recruit and train developmental workers, but they are still in a minority.
The department has provided much of the training, with assistance from NGOs, rather than through the further or higher education sector. Some universities have introduced changes in their curriculum, but further discussions are required. To ensure linkages between social security, welfare and development as single human resource development strategy for the social development sector was drafted, covering all areas of work, including HIV/AIDS. The strategy has been tabled with the Health and Welfare SETA for approval and funding.
Challenges of Implementation: Two things stand out in the implementation of our social security programme thus far. Firstly there is the question of whether our programmes are targeted enough, and whether they do reach the most vulnerable in our society. Secondly, are they able to achieve both the objectives of social protection and creating enablers for the people to take themselves out of the trap of poverty?
On the first question, the campaign to register all children eligible and needing the child support grant is very critical. But this must be supported by strong organisation on the ground to ensure that the most vulnerable are cared for. Our branches have to take responsibility to ensure that those who are in great need of assistance from the state, do get access to that assistance. Our social security campaign should therefore not end with registration of those who qualify, but it should be seen as a campaign to rebuild our communities, and to realise the goal of a caring society.
This conference should therefore discuss this issue of poverty eradication and locate it within our perspective of the South African state as a developmental state, with the ANC and its allies leading that development, and mobilising people at large to lend a hand for a better life for all. Any discussion of social security that does not bear this in mind is likely to reduce our people to victims that must wait for handouts from the state in order to live.
The ANC should therefore concern itself with two strategic objectives in the area of social security. Firstly we must ensure that all those who need to get the existing grants, do get them. Our campaign in the next few years must be to ensure that all obstacles to the people receiving their grants must be removed. Secondly we must intensify the programme to improve service delivery.
We must make sure that all departments who have anti-poverty programmes deliver them timorously and efficiently. Particular attention must be paid to ensuring that programmes target the most destitute people in rural areas as well as in urban areas.
INCOME POVERTY: The biggest challenge in attacking poverty has been in the areas of employment, SMME development and related areas. Our social and economic programmes have as yet to result in significant positive gains in employment. Unfortunately, income poverty makes it difficult for the poor to access services provided by the state.
The Department of Social Development has shifted from a welfare approach towards a more developmental approach, initiating poverty relief projects through which beneficiaries could engage in various income generating programmes. The programmes started with serious teething problems particularly under spending, which were later corrected. It is however unclear what the actual impact of these programmes is.
The Public Works Programme has been hailed as amongst the best in the world. Initial problems of implementation included coordination and capacity across the three spheres of government, inequitable spread of benefits, imbalances of project type, lack of proper monitoring and evaluation systems, under-spending and limited integration between departments. Changes were introduced on the basis of evaluation done. Concerns raised about the NPWP include the cost and sustainability of jobs, the complicated nature of such projects, and the need to link skills learned on these projects with skills in demand in the labour market. The Cabinet Lekgotla in July 2002 agreed on work towards a comprehensive employment strategy, which should amongst others include massively expanding the Public works programme.
An part of the debate about measurers to alleviate poverty by addressing incomes of important the poor, is access to micro finance and credit. Poor people, particular women and those living in the rural area fall outside of the mainstream financial and banking sectors. Although there are a number of institutions that the democratic state has put in place to address this and we have also sought to regulate the micro lending sector to protect poor people, it has been largely inadequate.
NOTE: These issues are discussed in more detail in the discussion paper on Economic Transformation.
SPATIAL PLANNING, DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
Apartheid colonialism - in particular policies and legislation such as the Land Acts (1913 and 1926), Group Areas, migrancy and Bantustan policies - has resulted in settlement patterns that are extremely distorted. These distortions resulted in black South Africans being deprived of productive and fertile agricultural land, and crammed into reserves with very little productive activities to sustain them. It also reflects the very unequal patters of land distribution. Our towns and cities also reflect this reality, with black townships far removed from the centres of business and largely underdeveloped in terms of basic social and economic services. Our programme of transformation and deracialising South Africa therefore fundamentally has to change this situation.
Poverty levels in the country especially among the historically disadvantaged require an integrated approach in our provision of services. Human settlements should therefore be developed through coordination between various departments and all spheres of government. Some of the challenges we face are: the enormity of the backlogs in social services; land hunger, underdevelopment, especially in rural areas, limited state resources; massive infrastructure backlogs, inadequate private sector finance; the proliferation of informal settlements and corruption and fraud. While all these are part of the discussions on economic transformation, they are central to the mandate of social transformation, the eradication of poverty and its effects, especially as it relates directly to our ability to meet the basic needs of our people.
It is for this reason that we called in 1999 for an integrated approach to urban and rural development, which uses proper and adequate planning for maximum impact. Our approach to development, which has targeted certain areas where we would impact on a large number of people, has raises an important and a critical issue of putting planning and targeting at the centre of our interventions. This suggests that we should move away from a short-gun approach to service delivery and development, where we work in silos and concentrate on meeting backlogs through separate and uncoordinated attempts to make a dent on the statistics around backlogs in basic services like water, sanitation, health care, housing etc. We therefore need to assess how this approach is working on the ground, and whether we are indeed doing what we had planned to do.
Integrated Sustainable Rural Development and Urban Renewal: The Integrated Rural and Urban Renewal Programmes form a critical part of our programmes to push back the frontiers of poverty. The objective of the ISRDS is to improve the quality of life of rural citizens through alleviating poverty and providing sustainable livelihoods. It is premised on the understanding that the rural economy can and should contribute to economic growth. In many of the rural areas this opportunity is primarily linked to agriculture, small business development, provision of social services, land reform, access to finance, infrastructure development, mining and tourism.
The successful implementation of the ISRDS depends on integration across government departments through clusters; co-ordinated planning and implementation between national, provincial and local governments and by building institutional and other capacity, of especially the new District and municipal structures under the new local government dispensation. Such planning and coordination require the development of sound Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) for each locality. IDPs also give us a tool to understand what impact our development are going to have on deracialising our communities, and ensure that we create complete and cohesive communities, as all community facilities they require are made available at the same time.
The Cabinet Lekgotla in July 2002 noted that all the anchor projects in the initial seventeen ISRDP nodes are being implemented, but agreed that supervision of each node should be improved. New nodes are being identified for integrated projects to be launched. While progress is also being made in the Urban Renewal nodes, it was noted that this was much slower than had originally been envisaged. In these areas, only 50% of the anchor projects are up and running. This weakness should be rectified. The Lekgotla also noted that many of the IDPs that have been developed need to be improved and to take into consideration our PHP approaches in order to ensure that they are not just expert or developer driven, but they involve people. While IDPs are an important tool, we must acknowledge that they are a new approach to planning, and will therefore need to be given time to take off the ground as people get used to this way of working.
Housing: The NGC (2000) noted that we met our 1 million housing target for the first five years as set out in the RDP. It emphasised the need to ensure a housing programme that integrate and deracialise cities and towns, house the poor close to places of work, root out corruption in the system of housing delivery and to address issues around related infrastructure such as sport and recreational facilities. In 2002, 1.5 million people have shelter, packaged in a manner that provides electricity, access to water and basic forms of sanitation.
Having identified problems in the initial phase of the housing roll-outs, the department has concluded National Minimum Norms and Standards for residential development, the Housing Consumer Protection Measurers Act and The Rental Housing Act. In addition, the medium density housing was made a priority in the medium term expenditure framework and an increase in the housing subsidy, in order to promote social, rental housing and alternative tenure.
Social infrastructure: The challenge of deracialisation of our settlements still remains a big one. Our attempts to identify land which is strategic for this purpose need to be accelerated. We must however employ new approaches to the kinds of settlements we want to create for this purpose, and may have to look at rentals as potential mechanisms for this, as they force people to integrate and to create a commune.
Another challenge is the impact of new settlements on the value of property in the adjacent settlements. This is beginning to create difficulties in our communities, and seems to be more class related then racial, though its manifestations are still largely between areas that are predominantly white, and those new areas that are mainly black. Apart from the concerns about devaluation from the one side of the spectrum, there are concerns about the high rates that go with being in the same local authorities, as the cross-subsidisation of areas becomes a concern from some people. Reports about people abandoning their newly acquired houses because they cannot afford to pay rates are growing.
A government study in 1995 showed that there was an infrastructure backlog of R170 billion in our country. However since 1994, 2,8 million telephones have been installed, 1,3 million houses have been built or are under construction with a total budget of R16 billion, and 3 million homes electrified. Similarly over R12 billion has been spent on non-toll National and Provincial roads and the infrastructure budget for education facilities has increased from R501million in 2000/01 to R1.2billion in 2001/02. The Health capital expenditure has increased from R775 million in 1998/99 to R2.8 billion in 2001/02 while municipal infrastructure was in total allocated R2.4 billion in 2001/02 through Water Affairs, Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme and the Public Works Programme.
Despite these successes, a number of challenges remain, including the steady increase of informal settlements, maintenance of infrastructure and the ability of the poor to pay for services. To address the latter, our 2000 local elections manifesto introduced a basket of free services (electricity, water) for everybody, and we are making steady progress with implementing this programme.
NOTE: These matters are discussed in more detail in the paper on Infrastructure development.
Land and Tenure reform: The Mafikeng resolution and the NGC review noted progress that had been achieved in the area of Land Reform. As part of the NGC programmatic tasks, the NEC was mandated to convene a national land workshop to undertake a review of land restitution and redistribution.
In July 2001 a National Workshop on land reform was undertaken with representation of all Provinces and noted the following:
In the light of these observations made by the national workshop Government may need to consider setting up such a coordinating structure at national level and impress upon other Provincial Governments to do the same so as to address the challenges of post settlements that arise out the restitution process.
On redistribution, the workshop noted that the pace of delivery has improved. The product now delivered also addresses the concerns that were discussed and highlighted in the NGC ETC recommendations.
The Ministry of Land Affairs in its MTEF budget process put aside an amount for acquisition of land for farm workers and labour tenants from 2001 until 2003 in order to address the need of the landless poor individuals and communities. To date 2633 household have benefited with 30 471 hectors being transferred.
Municipalities have also received land for the establishment of commonages that are aimed at giving access to local communities who are interested in utilising this land for subsistence agriculture in order to intervene in reducing levels of vulnerability.
The Land Reform for agricultural development programme (LRAD) was launched in 2001 to give effect to the ANC objective of building black entrepreneurs in agriculture and thereby de-racialising the sector. The Economic commission during the NGC also noted that through land reform we can and must transfer land through the redistribution program to black entrepreneurs for productive use. Progress made thus far include:-
TENURE REFORM
At its national workshop on land, the ANC noted that Government has made slow progress in the drafting of the land tenure legislation. The Ministry of Land and Agriculture was therefore urged to move with speed in dealing with this matter. It was however noted that a national consultative conference was to be held in Durban in November 2001 where broad principles of the legislation will be canvassed.
A National Consultative Conference on Tenure Reform was held and agreed on the current land policy on tenure reform that acknowledged diverse forms of tenure options for South Africa (See chapter, Land Policy. 1995).
The conference also agreed on the need for legislation on communal land that will address the following:
Following this broad mandate a reference community that included all stakeholders was set up in order for the department of land affairs to liase with on and ongoing process. The Bill has been drafted and is ready for to be gazetted for public comment.
The bill seeks to address a number of problems inherited from Apartheid. Firstly, Laws involving arbitrary racial distinctions have been repealed, but land in the former homeland and the ex-SADT areas continues to be registered in the name of the State. This derives from the system of trusteeship, which locates the State as the owner and the administrator of land. Although most of the land in these areas is registered as 'State land', in some places, particular African traditional communities, other communities, groups, households, families and individuals have strong underlying rights to this land through the customary laws relating to occupation and use of the land or through purchase of land or through historical occupation of the land since time immemorial. These underlying rights in land have to this day not been registered in the respective right holders' names because of the inherited legacies in the land ownership patterns. Hence the urgent need to rectify this anomaly created by colonial and apartheid policies and practices.
Secondly, there are also long-standing disputes between provincial and local governments and traditional leaders and institutions about who owns and therefore controls the land in communal areas. Traditional leaders and institutions complain that local government initiatives undermine pre-existing land tenure rights, while councillors complain that traditional leaders and institutions block development so as to ensure that their hegemonic power and authority over land remains intact. In the process, the views of the rural folk have tended to be ignored. Occupants are not treated as decision-makers on land, which they have occupied from time immemorial.
The lack of clarity about the status of land tenure rights has not only led to these fierce political struggles between local government and traditional leaders and institutions but it has also inhibited investment, whether by outsiders or those who live in the area. As a result of the uncertainty as to who has what rights and who can take decisions relating to investments and developments on the land, both government and private sector projects are stalled. The uncertain nature and content of land tenure rights, a legacy of colonialism and apartheid, is one of the underlying causes of poverty and underdevelopment in these areas.
The key issues the draft Communal Land Rights Bill seeks to address are as follows:
The legislative measures seek to achieve the following:
DEVELOPING OUR HUMAN RESOURCES
Human resource development is a key pillar of the RDP. The movement has therefore place major emphasis on investment in our people as our most important resource.
to our strategy of human resource development is the integration of education and training, in order to ensure a close relationship between the supply institutions and the demand sector. Some of the key tools for such integration are expressed in our policies, such as the Skill Development Strategy, which links training directly to the workplace, and forces employers to see training as integral to their business enterprise, our Outcomes based approach to education and training. But the key instrument we have chosen to use for this purpose is the National Qualifications Framework, which is to be developed and maintained by the South African Qualifications Authority.Our assessment of progress in integrating education and training will reveal that although we have made some advances in creating the infrastructure for this purpose, it is still early days to observe results. Nevertheless we can safely say that we need to move much faster on certain aspects such as putting in place proper mechanisms for the recognition of prior learning.
The identification of scarce skills is also a major priority for us if we are to meet the demands of a globalising economy, and attempts are being made to finalise this in the context of our HRD strategy in government. We need to ensure that people are being trained in areas where we need them, especially in those areas where representivity, both in racial and gender terms, still leaves much to be desired, and where we still rely much on assistance of non-South Africans. The ANC must therefore play an active role in ensuring that programmes are being devised, and that bilateral agreements are being used to address the human resource needs of our country.
Central to our Human Resource Strategy though is the need to ensure that our education system works for us. All other interventions in human resource development have to work to complement an education system, and can never replace it. Therefore in order for us to move out of the vicious cycle of producing backlogs which we then address through strategic interventions, we must address the transformation of our education system
It is important to begin the policy debate on education within the ANC by identifying the specificity of the social and political project of education as distinct from the wider education policy debate. Our immediate strategic objective is to create a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society. In this context two immediate and pre-eminent priorities emerge for education. First, to deploy education as one of the most significant weapons to ameliorate the relations that results in and reproduces poverty for the significant proportion of African people. In this context, redistribution, equity and access are key strategic priorities for education within the NDR. Secondly, to reshape and reconstitute the values, ideology and culture in a manner that will break down the colonial relations that was the mainstay of South Africa's political economy.
A necessary and critical condition for advancing the objective of the NDR is building the capacity of the black people, in particular, and that of the working class. This capacity must be multifaceted and would include the development of the following: the political consciousness to continuously analyse and understand the context; the intellectual capacity to apply and sharpen the theoretical underpinnings of the NDR; the skills necessary to mediate technologies in production for economic growth and development; the new values of a democratic society; and the mobilisation of the independent strength of the motive forces to rally around the change agenda of the ANC.
Priorities for education: The Constitution guarantees all South Africans the right to "basic education, including adult education." Current education policy provides for compulsory education for all children aged 7 to 15 years. Due to financial constraints, the state requires those who can afford it to make a contribution through to education through school fees. People who cannot afford to pay school fees enjoy a statutory exemption from paying fees, depending on their level of earnings relative to the fees charged.
Our system of basic education already offers, on average, much more than the 12 years of general education coverage. The gross enrolment ratio is above 100% at both primary and secondary schools. Even amongst the most disadvantaged groups, average years spent in school is already more than 12 years. However, this does not translate into an average of 12 grades completed, because levels of learning attainment are low. This points to problems of poor quality and low efficiency in the system. It also suggests that the social distribution of quality is still unequal.
Thus, although much has so far been achieved that benefits disadvantaged communities, various barriers and blockages continue to impede the ability of these frameworks to improve the education achievement of the poor. Service delivery in other sectors, for instance in water, sanitation and electricity, have made visible and highly noticeable improvements to the lives of poor South Africans. However, the attainment of equality of quality education for all remains elusive and must be regarded as the key priority in the current period.
Our aim is to provide equality of opportunities to succeed. In terms of overall success rates in schools, we have improved since 1994, and we are getting better. This bodes well for overall human resource and national development. We have also improved in the field of maths and science, with pass rates improving. However the pedagogical efficiency of our system in terms of curriculum delivery and learner achievement is still weak, as is shown in international ratings. Many children, mostly rural, do not know enough at the end of school to study further, or to work. And success is clearly divided between rich and poor children. The value of social capital at this time is immense.
The enabling environment created by Government's education policies has allowed us to achieve significant gains in education improvements in the governance and performance of middle class schools. . The relative success of educational change in middle class schools combined with abiding shortcomings in service delivery in schools catering for the poor is beginning to reveal a fragmentation of the education system in South Africa. This trend needs to be arrested by applying strategies that are focussed on ensuring that the policy frameworks have the desired impact on education outcomes for the poor.
The analysis of the role of education in the NDR suggest the following key priorities for advancing the agenda for education transformation:
Addressing the challenges associated with poverty
Achieving equality of quality through curriculum reform and improved teaching and learning
Skills formation and improving the relevance of education for employment and job creation.
Building the black intelligentsia: Improving high-level skills formation and capacity for research and development.
Creating a cadre of teachers as key agents of the social project of education.
Improving the capacity of the bureaucracy and school governance.
Building consciousness and values that are consistent with our objectives of creating a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society.
Rebuilding the mass movement for education transformation.
Addressing the challenges of poverty and equity in education: Poverty and, in particular, the racial basis of its manifestation, represents a considerable challenge to improving education and training for the poor. Even though education is a key vehicle through which we seek to overcome poverty, poverty in itself constrains the capacity of school and individual learners for effective teaching and learning.
There is a strong correlation between poverty and educational attainment in South Africa, as is the case in other parts of the world. Poverty affects learning, but the extent of the difference, and the gap between rural and urban areas, reflects a real problem. Teaching and learning are not taking place in some schools - either because it cannot or because there is no will for it by teachers, pupils and parents.
There are two critical interventions that can compensate for the existence of poverty in regard to the success of children at school. These are:
The expansion of the Primary School Nutrition programme, under the management of school communities; and
The provision of early childhood development (ECD) opportunities from birth to 5, and a Grade R year while aged 5. The immediate rollout of ECD opportunities should be considered wherever such capacity exists.
Chronic poverty combined with rising costs of education represents one of the single most important threats to the education and training transformation agenda in South Africa. This country has some of the most robust policies in the world for achieving equity in education spending. While the School Funding Norms, the Teacher Rationalisation and Redeployment process, and the School Fee Exemption Policy have all assisted in promoting equity, the reality on the ground is that the education of poor learners continues to be stifled on account of inadequate financial inputs.
The state has not succeeded in making education simultaneously free for all and of reasonably high quality. There are three key operational terms:- free - for all and - of reasonably high quality. We could make education of fairly low quality free for all, but then many would choose not to avail themselves of something that was free but was perceived to be of low quality. This would result in a two-tiered, highly privatised system consisting of those who are forced to access a poor quality system remaining in the public system, and those who opt out going to the private sector. South Africa has thus far managed to prevent the large-scale emergence of a private school sector. Maintaining a public school sector that reaches virtually the entire population is a key nation-building asset, which we should not endanger.
However, the state could make education of reasonably high quality free to the poor, or in fact to anyone who wants it. This would be double fairly soon and without causing undue stress and strain to the social fabric (i.e., by having to give up investments in other sectors), but would require some political and technocratic changes. The main changes required would be:
In addition, it would require that more resources flow to the poor, so as to make fees unwarranted, backing up the first set of interventions. This in turn requires several conditions:
Too many resources are spent on unproductive activities at national and provincial levels, such as coordination, as well as activities that are very complex, internally contradictory or unsustainable. The consequence is that managers spend a great deal of time coordinating and consulting, instead of engaging in line-management supervision of actual delivery. Coordination and consultation tend to happen at levels of the system higher than the school; thus the more the system emphasises coordination and consultation, the less resources reach the school.
Policies that focus on an equitable sharing of existing resources are clearly not sufficient. It is now urgent to make a careful study of the adequacy of funding for the education and training of poor learners, who face the double challenge of poorly resourced environments at school and at home.
There are other alternatives. One could forbid fees in all schools, or one could forbid fees in poor schools. The first option would lead to a massive flight of the middle classes to the private schools, and result in a net privatisation of schooling in the country. Public schools would then tend to be for the poor. Unfortunately, the political economy of public goods is such that schooling for the poor tends to be poor schooling. When the political and public sector elites themselves flee to the private sector, the fate of the public schooling sector is sealed.
A second option would be to forbid fees in poor schools. This, however, might make the poor feel targeted as second-class citizens who are incapable of making their own decisions. A better sub-option here would be for the education departments to determine whether the community of parents in a certain zone is sufficiently well organised (and the school community not so poor) that they can be allowed to proceed to self-assess contributions to the school. In that case one is making an organisational judgement, not making the poor into second-class citizens. This might indeed be a workable alternative. It should, however, not take the pressure off actually allocating more resources to the poor.
Inequalities between provinces are also a cause for concern. Situations where equally poor schools on opposite sides of a provincial boundary receive vastly different levels of resourcing are an indictment of our vision of a united, post-apartheid South Africa. The constitutional arrangements often cited as the culprits are not insuperable. The space exists in the budgeting processes of the country to pay greater attention to inter-provincial equity. What is needed is more serious engagement with these processes by ANC and allies in the bureaucracy.
Achieving equality of quality through curriculum reform and improved teaching and learning: The apartheid regime in seeking to maintain its dominance and keep the oppressed majority in subjugation, sought to erode the capacity of the education system to reproduce a black intelligentsia. Its policy of Bantu Education was aimed at destroying institutions that produced African intellectuals and professionals, and replacing them with forms of learning that stifle critical thinking, creativity and innovation.
The foundation of the reproduction of these intellectuals and professionals was good high schools that were predominantly run by missionaries, and other township schools such as Orlando High. Over the last forty years, South Africa has witnessed a decline of well-run, functional and dynamic schools in the rural areas and in the townships. The resultant effect of these reactionary policies is that matriculation graduates who enter universities have been denied the basic foundation to grow and develop into well-rounded intellectuals and professionals.
Whilst curriculum innovation is a necessary condition for educational change, it is not a sufficient condition for improving the productive capacity of our learning institutions and the quality of learning. Real quality learning can be achieved by building dynamic and vibrant high schools with dedicated teachers who understand the moral purpose for teaching.
We have managed to push the agenda of education transformation forward through curriculum reform post-1994. These gains have been quite spectacular in some parts of the education system. However, in significant sections of the system, a shortage of vital resources that support learning at home and in school has prevented the poor child from achieving similar gains. Children who do not enjoy the benefits of books in their home, a computer, and the physical space to study have been at a disadvantage. This is the situation that prevails in the homes of the 40% of our households.
This must inform the way teachers teach and the materials they use. It is probably not debatable that the country's education system has placed insufficient emphasis on getting books to our poorest learners. Moreover, we must carefully weigh the potential benefits of introducing a core set of high quality books that would be used nationwide, in all schools, and that would transmit the core values of our emerging democracy, and of the elected Government. Misplaced arguments about local choice are used to dilute the fact that there is a need for some curriculum centralism, even in the materials we use, if we are to build a united country, and if we are to provide the poor with access to quality books. We need a greater focus on curriculum content rather than outcomes, with more standardised learning support materials. National values are best promoted by the existence of a uniform national system of education, which is equitable and comparable.
Skills development and improving the relevance of education for employment and job creation: The guiding principles of human resource development in South Africa is found in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), which highlighted the need for improving the quality of life of our people through training and development. Amongst the resolution taken in the Mafikeng conference in 1997 was the need to pursue human resource development through cooperation between state departments and with social partners in targeting, developing and funding training programmes. The HRD Strategy for South Africa which was launched with "A Nation at Work for a Better Life for All" as the driving message behind it - with a strong element of involving communities in developing themselves - in the spirit of Vuk' uzenzele.
The mobilising slogan of the democratic state "A better life for all", can only be realised though the improvement of the productive capacity of the economy. A key element in raising the productive capacity of the economy is the skills base of our people. Historically, black people and Africans in particular have been denied access to key skills and professions. The legacy of racial stratification of the labour market and the effects of the racist policy remain persistent in our economy.
Millions of adults in and outside employment remain unskilled. Millions of young people have passed matric, yet cannot gain access to higher education, or they have failed and their learning has been terminated. The HRD Strategy calls for the development of foundational competencies, including functional literacy, as well as intermediate skills (technicians) to manipulate the technologies involved in production.
Progress in the transformation of higher and further education and training and in the area of skills development through SETAs and the Skills Development Fund are vital components of our collective strategies for meeting the challenges related to skills formation and improving the relevance of education and training for employment and job creation.
Building the black intelligentsia - improving high-level skills and capacity for research and development: The development of a massified higher education system, i.e. one that is increased in size to absorb a greater proportion of eligible 20-24 year olds, broadened to accommodate increasing numbers of mature learners, women and those from rural communities and the disabled, has long been a goal of the democratic movement.
While recognising that access to higher education cannot be viewed in the same way as universal access to general education or to further education on an incremental basis as resources become available, the need to make the higher education system representative of the race, class and gender profile of our society must continue to frame our transformation agenda in this sector.
However, the call for increased and broadened access must be linked to concerns for equity of outcomes and to the development needs of the country. In this regard, the system currently falls short. The number of black students entering the system has increased and the system has become more representative, at least as far as students are concerned. This has to a considerable extent been made possible through the investment made in the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).
But, the shortfalls remain glaring. In particular, students still continue to enrol, in large numbers, in programmes that ill prepare them for the labour market. As a result, the potential for graduate unemployment and under-employment increase and student success rates are unacceptably low. The flow of competent graduates, especially in professional areas, has thus not kept abreast of economic and social development needs. This has the potential to reach crisis level in some key areas such as teaching.
Two other areas need to be highlighted. The first is the failure of higher education to ensure that it contributes to the development of the next generation of black academics, professionals and intellectuals. The majority of the country's researchers remain white and male. Furthermore, this group of researchers is aging and, if not replaced will result in a crisis for the research and higher education systems of the country.
The second is the concern that research in higher education has not adequately responded to the political, social and economic imperatives confronting the country. Similarly, the teaching curriculum in many areas remains blind to the changing social and political context of the country. This, in turn, impacts on the prevailing values and ethos of higher education institutions, which in some instances, has not responded to either the changing composition of universities and technikons, or the transforming nature of society.
These and other concerns have shaped our transformation agenda that includes far-reaching measures to restructure the higher education system. While there has been much in principle support for the need to restructure, the proposals of Government, which are firmly based on a policy, which places equity, redress and development at the centre of change, have been met with resistance.
This has taken different forms and served different agendas. There are real concerns about, for example, the potential for job losses, the ability to successfully manage large-scale change, etc., which must be addressed. Many of the responses are dressed in the guise of institutional autonomy, but are little more than the protection of vested interests. Similarly, while we need to be sensitive to historical values, names and reputations, these should not be used to hold the transformation agenda hostage.
Creating a cadre of teachers as key agents for change in education: Schools and other education institutions need to be staffed not only with competent teachers, but also with teachers who understand the agenda of the new democratic state and the role that education and training must play in processes of social and economic change. Teacher organisations, and SADTU in particular, have a moral and strategic responsibility to raise the consciousness of teachers and define their central role in this drive for quality education. Regrettably many teachers currently in-service have no service ethos, and are resistant to any form of performance standards.
Teachers are entrusted with the upliftment of the African majority, and are on the forefront of the war against poverty, ignorance and disease. Thousands of our teachers execute their duties selflessly and with an outstanding sense of commitment. However, too many display serious lapses in discipline and commitment. The apartheid inheritance of poor training and isolated, poorly equipped infrastructure is undoubtedly a part of the problem, but cannot be used as an excuse by those who betray our children through sub-optimal performance.
Resourcing and training must be accelerated, as well as the need for the ideological and moral strengthening of our teaching corps. Most teachers in the country are ANC members or supporters, and the biggest teacher union belongs to our Tripartite Alliance. A failure of the teaching corps as a whole to take up the challenge to rebuild the education system, mainly through hard and committed work, has to be seen to a large degree as a result of our failure to create a true cadreship of teachers. At the same time it must be recognised that the necessary policy changes since 1994 have had a destabilising effect on education, and teachers have been required to deal with many difficult issues.
These tasks, therefore, requires a consistent engagement with teacher organisations on the need to move away from developing only a narrow trade union consciousness, i.e. the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employer/state, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc.
There are concerns about a future shortage of qualified teachers. The impact of AIDS on education will be severe, and will force us to think in new and creative ways about schools and teachers. In many respects teachers will become the vulnerable elements in the system - expensive and unreliable. We must use this to generate a new and open-ended debate about the nature of education, and how best to deliver it. At the same time we must consider urgent steps to deal with the problem. These options include:
A vigorous campaign of student recruitment, targeting the brightest and best, to become teachers.
100% financing for teacher bursaries, not means-based, and redeemed in service at a reduced salary.
Community service for all teachers (withdraw legislative amendments) * Enhanced benefits for teaching in rural and township schools, in order to attract qualified and committed teachers to these schools. Benefits may not be only salary; preferential promotion opportunities could be factored in at no cost.
Improving the capacity of the bureaucracy and school governance: Educational transformation is not just a technical process of managerial efficiency, or a cultural one of understanding and involvement. It is in essence a political process and as such the change agenda is always contested. The contestation arises because education and training is the greatest gatekeeper of opportunities and a powerful distributor of life chances. Under apartheid education and training was defined to favour the white minority over the indigenous African people in particular and the black people in general.
Eight years into our democracy, transformation of the education bureaucracies is now not only a matter of challenging practises lingering from the apartheid past, but also a matter of challenging some of the bad practises that have emerged post-1994. We need to recognise that there has been a tendency for the education departments to prioritise everything, and excel in nothing. Whilst politically we need to acknowledge that all education priorities deserve attention, it is also necessary to signal to the bureaucracy where the absolute priorities lie, and then to hold the bureaucracy accountable for focussing its limited resources in a rational and sustainable manner, without spreading its focus and resources out too thinly. Above all, it should be the focus of the bureaucracies at this point to focus on delivering quality education to the poor.
The bureaucracies are severely limited in their research capabilities, especially in terms of the more technical planning questions. This is a serious shortcoming, as the education system is massive and complex, and requires sophisticated management. The ANC should insist that the energies of the country's best progressive planners and education managers be harnessed by the bureaucracy in the interests of improved planning.
Perhaps the greatest failure of the education bureaucracies in the country is that they are unable to tell the people or the movement whether teaching and learning in the classroom, particularly those classrooms where our poorest and most disadvantaged children sit, is getting better or not. The country invests enormously in an education system whose job it is to ensure that our children and youth can, at the most fundamental level, read and write proficiently, and more generally, that they become educated, knowledgeable and confident South Africans capable of participating fully in our diverse economy and our democracy.
We must admit that this system has no effective way yet to monitor whether it delivers the goods. Matric examinations provide some idea of what happens at the end of a twelve-year process, and there have been a few attempts to measure learning elsewhere in the system. Nevertheless, we are a few years away from having the kinds of monitoring mechanisms that characterise effective education systems around the world. It is not impossible to put those mechanisms in place in a year or two. Waiting any longer will simply compromise the future of the African child.
We have been true to our promise of democratisation of education through popular local participation in school governing bodies. However school governing bodies have not been systematically capacitated to undertake this important role. The SA Schools Act did not envisage a total abdication of the role of the state in schools governance, as is happening in some provinces. Devolving power to poor schools without the necessary sustained and systematic capacity building, leave schools vulnerable to a number of unscrupulous forces. We need to ask ourselves whether our excitement to achieve our medium to long-term goals of popular local participatory governance has detracted us from our short-term delivery objectives of increasing the quality of learning and ultimately the employability of the disadvantaged and the poor.
The structure of school governance is a conceptual and practical problem. In practical terms, school governing bodies have either failed to use their powers or abused them. Poor schools collect little or no fees, so most of the real powers are effectively nullified. And because these are often homogenous rural communities, choices of school policies are hardly contested. The existence of SGBs has not been felt by poor communities, and has added little value, although a large amount has been spent on the election and training of 80 000 school governors.
By encouraging self-managing schools, we inherently promote an isolationist approach to education, instead of favouring co-operation. Instead of sharing scarce resources, we are forcing every school to be fully self-sufficient. A collective approach, such as a single School Board aligned to Local Government demarcations, should be considered. District offices of the Department could take over many of the functions of the School Governing Bodies (SGBs), and ensure a better distribution of resources, pupils and teachers. The time has therefore dawned for us to look at providing a structure of district or local authority based governance for especially the poor schools. We need to ensure that we do not abdicate assistance to poor through a "one fits all" solution of school governance.
It is recommended that a comprehensive review of the SA Schools Act should be undertaken. The current policy and associated legislation is often viewed as being essentially one of appeasement, and not designed to address the needs of the disadvantaged and poor.
Values in education: The formation of values is a shared task for parents, education, and society at large. Education can only attempt to influence these, and reinforce those of parents and society. We have active programmes that promote the values of the South African Constitution, the national symbols, History, Heritage Day and other national days. We work with the Moral Regeneration Movement, and promote sport, music, arts and culture.
Values are best demonstrated and promoted by the behaviours of the new cadre of teacher, which we sought to develop. We have in place programmes and institutional arrangements for initial teacher education. The incorporation of Colleges into universities and technikons has created possibilities for more effective central planning. The Ministry of Education's work on Values in Education must be supported and accelerated.
Rebuilding the mass movement in education: The education transformation agenda is fundamentally a political project. Given the role of education in the NDR and Reconstruction and Development, it is vital that this project of education is inserted into the wider discourse on education policy and transformation in the country.
The ANC is presently unable to effectively lead this discourse and exercise stewardship over the political project of education. It is therefore vital to reconstitute the political center for education in the ANC. This center will have to comprise of a permanent institution located within the organization and subjected to its discipline. This political center must also fill the important gap of articulating the political project of education within the organization and stimulate the active involvement of ANC Branches in education matters at a local level to strengthen education governance, which probably one of the most serious blockages to achieving effective gains in education improvement for the poor.
Some issues for Consideration by Conference: The drive to create a single nation, with a national education system, has resulted in numerous compromises, including the constitutional framework of education itself. But we have retained the belief in and the integrity of a national education system. We have reached a plateau, supported by an infrastructure of laws and policies. But beneath the plains, there are thousands for whom the infrastructure is meaningless, and who are largely untouched by educational policy changes of the past 8 years. This makes the system extremely vulnerable, and we must continue to improve the system to allow for all to share in its design.
In doing so we must either discount the private schools, or ignore the cries of their lobby; the former seems more appropriate given the undue attention they have been given to date. The existence of a black middle class has effectively de-racialised most of these schools, and they serve an economic and social purpose. We must give attention to the interests of the many, and focus unambiguously on the vast majority of public schools, which are poor.
Better facilities and more forceful management of personnel would contribute much to improving the benefits of education. Changes in governance and more definitive curricula would ensure that these benefits are more equitably shared and enjoyed.
HERITAGE AND NATION BUILDING
The challenge of nation building is central to achieving our strategic objective of a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic society. The Strategy and Tactics document (1997) alludes to our diversity and our heritage, and charges us to harness it in the interest of building a unified South African identity. We therefore have a duty to mobilise our resources in this regard.
Our definition of nation building is captured very well by our President in his speech at the opening of a debate on the subject of reconciliation and nation building in 1999 where he said, " with regard to the first of these, our response would be that nation-building is the construction of the reality and the sense of common nationhood which would result from the abolition of disparities in the quality of life among South Africans based on the racial, gender and geographic inequalities we all inherited from the past".
The ANC believes that the starting point is the reconstruction and development of our country, which will create the material base for nation building. As long as our people are divided by a wide social and economic gap, which is reflected in racial, geographical and gender terms, nation building will be difficult to achieve. Therefore our efforts at creating a better life for all and addressing the legacy of our immediate past are fundamentally about creating a non-racial, and non-sexist South Africa in whose wealth all its people share.
National symbols: As we address these fundamental questions, we must also work hard at creating symbols of our identity and nationhood. The development of all our languages so that they truly have equal status is critical to nation building. So is the promotion of our national symbols. It is our duty as cadres of the movement who understand the historic need to promote non-racialism to take the lead in the promotion of our national symbols such as our national flag, our Anthem, and our coat of arms. The government has to promote these symbols, and draw from our diverse heritage to build a new nation. Amongst the programmes to encourage a common national identity is the promotion of our national symbols in all our schools.
Heritage: The Legacy Project, which involves the development of sites and institutions that express both colonial (e.g. Ncome Museum) and post-colonial (e.g. Mandela Museum) struggle history, is near completion, with the exception of the major multi-year Freedom Park project. The Robben Island Museum has made major strides forward since its inception in 1998. Particular landmarks have been the declaration of Robben Island as a World Heritage site and the completion of the Robben Island Gateway facility at the Waterfront in Cape Town. The recent return from France of the remains of Sarah Baartman forms a cornerstone of the Khoisan component of the Legacy Project. The extremely important heritage of Umkhonto we Sizwe finds a natural home at Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, which we are in the process of acquiring for the purpose of establishing a museum.
More problematic, however, has been the transformation of the heritage infrastructure that the ANC inherited from the previous regime in 1994 (e.g. the Military museum in Johannesburg). Because of limited resources, the focus has obviously been on previously neglected and transformational areas, such as those expressed in the Legacy Project. This has meant that other museums, such as those forming the Iziko Museums of Cape Town, have not received the same attention, although from both a tourism and a heritage perspective they are significant. It was Iziko Museum scientists who recently discovered the Blombos stone, on which appears the earliest example of human "writing" and scientists from the Northern Flagship Museum, together with those from Wits University, have been at the forefront of palaeontological work relating to the Cradle of Humankind.
We must also encourage as part of heritage, local community heritage societies, whose responsibility it is to encourage the discovery, recording and popularization of local history and heritage sites in their communities. In addition, we also need different sectors to contribute to our overall heritage project of documenting the transition of the last decade or so. Amongst the things we must consider is a dedicated agency, that will be responsible for consistently collating, assessing and produce in popular form our heritage and history.
Language: National policy and legislation on language is due to be finalized only at the end of the year 2002. It has been difficult to balance the imperatives of the Constitution against practical principles such as the cost and user-friendliness of new policy. The focus has therefore been on practical measures to promote language. The Pan South African Language Board (PSALB) has a programme to develop dictionaries in all languages. The Telephone Interpreting and Answering Service of South Africa (TISSA) is enabling South Africans to obtain key emergency service advice (e.g. from the SA Police Service) in their own languages. The Human Language Technologies programme is using new software being developed in South Africa and elsewhere to develop word processor spell checks in South African languages, to produce automatic translation and voice recognition software.
A key issue in the development of indigenous languages, are the issues of language in education - including mother tongue instruction at entrance levels, encouraging multi-lingualism and language in higher education. The Public broadcaster, as does the publishing industry, too have important roles to play in the promotion of African languages.
Archives: A new National Archives Act has been implemented since Mafikeng. Two basic principles inform the mandate of any archives: good governance and national memory. The challenge with respect to good governance in South Africa has been to establish solid provincial archival structures (this is only partly complete) and to keep abreast of international developments in electronic record keeping. Regarding national memory, there are still huge challenges in incorporating previously neglected (e.g. oral history), previously hidden (e.g. TRC records) or of the transition (CODESA, post 1994) into the national archival record. The Archives project of the ANC, as well as the project to record the 90 years of ANC history will be important contributions to the process of ensuring that all aspects of our history is recorded.
Heraldry: Significant progress has been made with the adoption of a new national coat of arms and more recently a new set of national orders.
Performing arts: This has been one of the most difficult areas to make progress in. In order to release funds for artists not funded by the previous regime, it was necessary to cut subsidies to established institutions such as the major theatres in Cape Town, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Durban. These funds have been channelled via the National Arts Council (established in 1998) to a wide range of artists and projects. However, the funding cuts to major institutions have generated a significant backlash from vocal elements of the arts community. Moreover, during the struggle years, when international donors were prevented from funding political organizations and trades unions, arts bodies were recipients, almost by default. This source of funding has clearly dried up, and so many artists find themselves worse off than they were before 1994. One weakness in our approach may be insufficient leveraging of private sector resources.
Despite these limitations and challenges, the entrepreneurial activities of young musicians, producers, designers, poets, sculptors, comedians, writers have unleashed not only a flurry of activity asserting a distinct African identity, but also points to the large pool of untapped talent in our country. Also, a transformational development has been the formation of a National Dance Troupe under Jonas Gwangwa and Nomsa Manaka. The aim of this initiative is to develop indigenous dances and dancers in a culturally faithful way to the point where they can compete with the world's best on national and international stages.
All the above are examples of what has been done to deal with our past, but the ANC has to ensure that efforts at nation building involve the people themselves. We need to profile this issue through campaigns that focus on issues relating to nation building. Our efforts during Heritage month are important, but they are not enough.
An opportunity to focus on this issue will again arise when the debate
around the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee begins. It provides
a platform to get the nation to focus on and to confront its past.
`Our conference must therefore reassert our understanding as a movement,
especially around the issue of reparations. We must make it clear that the
project of the TRC was largely about making sure that perpetrators tell
the truth, and that victims of gross human rights violations know the truth
about what happened to them and their loved ones. The search for the truth
is a continuing process, and so is the process of reparations. We must therefore
emerge with a perspective, which sees our reconstruction and development
programme as a whole, as a process of confronting and dealing with that
past, both individually and collectively.
Broad challenges facing Conference
An assessment of South Africa today indicates that the lives of the people are by and large gradually changing for the better. Access to a number of basic services such as housing, land, energy, education, health care, water and sanitation etc. has been extended to millions of our people. This indeed suggests that our broad policy thrust in many areas is correct, and should be affirmed.
Having said that, it is clear that in some specific areas we need to examine how our policies as well as our implementation could be strengthened. Amongst the issues that we must look at include:
Strengthening integration of governance in a real way across the different spheres, through the effective use of instruments such as Integrated Development Plans, MinMECs, the NCOP and clusters to ensure integrated development and addressing matters of equity across and within provinces.
Decisive intervention to strengthen the capacity of local government, as being at the coal face of delivery - including the issue of decisive movement towards a single public sector;
Prioritising the rural nodes as lead programmes to decisively lift the standard of living in these poorest areas of our country.
Addressing issues of the ethos and culture of the public service in the spirit of Batho Pele - at management levels, as well as members of the progressive union movement.
The greatest challenge we face in implementation remains capacity to implement, which manifests itself in lack of capacity to plan and integrate our plans for maximum impact, lack of proper system for monitoring and evaluation, challenges of service delivery, including the building of a culture of service, corruption, and limited resources.
Perhaps this may also point to another weakness we may need to address,
which undermines our social transformation agenda. The ANC should carry
out its agenda primarily through its structures, the branches. Any weakness
in these structures leads to our failure as an organisation to fulfil our
mandate. Many of our social policies do not succeed to take off in implementation
because they are underpinned by the logic of a strong ANC.
Without this strength they do not succeed, and the forces opposed to us
then find space to undermine them.
Less than eighteen months after we hold our 51st National Conference, our country will celebrate its 10th anniversary of liberation. When this important moment comes, we must be able to measure in quantifiable ways the progress we have made during the first decade of liberation. This last lap to that anniversary should also inspire us to ensure that we use People's Power in Action more effectively further to advance quicker towards the goals of a better life for all and a truly transformed South Africa.
Thinking on economic policy in the ANC has been influenced by the political positions of the movement developed over many decades of struggle. The Freedom Charter stands out as the most comprehensive expression of the ideals of the movement. A number of the core ideas have been through various stages of development.
Each of the National Conferences at Morogoro (1960), at Kabwe (1985), in Durban (1991), and in Bloemfontein (1994), have added to these particular ideas. In addition, special policy initiatives such as the Ready to Govern conference (May 1992) and the drafting of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (February 1993) greatly expanded the scope and detail of economic policy. The National Executive Committee has also discussed and directed economic policy implementation from time to time. It is essential that we affirm the purpose of the policy review process we now embark upon.
We must recognise that this policy review takes place under the broad rubric of 'Continuity and Change'. This means that we must take as a starting point the existing policy positions adopted by the 50th National Conference (Mafikeng, December 1997) and reviewed by the National General Council (Port Elizabeth, July 2000). Our basic policy positions have always reflected our unswerving commitment to the vision of a united, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa. These objectives will not be realised overnight since their achievement requires a fundamental transformation of our country.
Moreover, we must recognise the dialectical relationship between the policy centre, namely the ANC Conference, and the implementing agency, the ANC in government. Since the elections, and the formation of a democratic ANC-led government, we have started implementing the policy framework. We must learn from this experience. Furthermore, we must recognise the dialectical relationship between the ANC in government, and the mass based liberation movement that we continue to lead. Mass mobilisation, in other words is an essential component of our programmes for economic transformation and we also must learn from our successes and failures in these areas.
To support the policy review process, this document outlines our progress in fulfilling the resolutions of the 50th National Conference in Mafikeng. It starts with a general overview of economic developments and policies since the ANC took power in 1994. It examines the economy inherited by the ANC in 1994 and progress since then with an emphasis on what has been achieved since the Mafikeng National Conference in 1997. On the basis of this review some of the current challenges and debates are discussed. This review and discussion forms the background for the formulation of resolutions by branches for the 51st National Conference later this year.
Overall economic strategy
The crisis of the apartheid economy
In 1994, the ANC inherited an economy that was in long-term decline and was massively distorted by apartheid's political and economic policies. Although South Africa's per capita Gross Domestic Product ranked it as a middle-income country, living standards for the majority resembled those of much poorer countries. Levels of malnutrition, homelessness, and illiteracy in South Africa were closer to those of less-developed countries. Massive inequalities in incomes, wealth and skills characterised the economy. These inequalities existed between race groups, between men and women, and between rural and urban areas. A range of studies showed that South Africa ranked amongst the most unequal economies in the world. The black majority had effectively been excluded from economic ownership and control fundamentally undermining black people's ability to accumulate capital.
The economy was in long-term decline and faced the threat of deindustrialisation. This stagnation was associated with:
A slump in gold mining, historically the mainstay of the economy.
In terms of macroeconomic policy, there were worries about the deficit, which was approaching 8 per cent of the GDP at the time. Inflation was over 10 per cent, despite periods of very high interest rates. There was a danger that a new government could fall into a 'debt trap' and that interest payments on government debt would reach unsustainable levels and comprise an ever-increasing proportion of government expenditure.
Investment in both the public and private sectors had stagnated for nearly a decade prior to 1992. This was due to high cost structures and the resultant inability to expand either the domestic or export markets. The high cost structures were mainly due to short production runs, relatively high tariffs, stagnating managerial practice, poor human resources development, and poor work process methods.
Domestic demand was stagnant as a result of severe wealth inequality, stagnant real incomes (inflation was historically high despite low growth) and rising unemployment. The government of the mid - 1980s to 1993 had vainly tried to address social problems by generating a dangerously high fiscal deficit. Public corporations were overburdened with debt, generally required subsidies from government and were badly managed. In an attempt to compensate for a lack of competitiveness in manufacturing exports, a grossly expensive and ineffecient incentive scheme (GEIS) was introduced.
This combination of factors was not only the cause of a structurally stagnant economy, but also rendered the economy particularly vulnerable to the profound changes in the world economy, because there was a fundamental mismatch between developments in the South African economy and changes in the global economy. The changes in cost structures in industry in other economies - both developed and developing - were very dynamic and in manufacturing the cost structures were declining in relative and often absolute terms. The gap was therefore growing rapidly between costs of production in SA and competing economies.
The aparthied labour relations regime was not suited to a modern economy. Workplace relations between management and workers were extremely antagonistic resulting in high levels of strike action, and low productivity. Generally, workers enjoyed few rights and little protection from labour law despite reforms to the labour regime in the 1980s and early 1990s. This was particularly the case in sectors where collective bargaining structures were weak or absent.
In short the economy was not competitive in the world economy. Furthermore, deep-seated structural problems, such as very large income inequalities (in both absolute and relative terms), constrained the ability of the economy to grow and develop. Against this backdrop the economy was incapable of financing the required level of social expenditure over time in a sustainable manner.
In line with the ANC's mission to fundamentally transform the South African economy, various policies were introduced from 1994 onwards. These included cross-cutting policies and sector-specific policies, and addressed both the macroeconomic position of the country as well as microeconomic constraints to growth.
In 1997, the ANC reflected on these policies and the progress that had been achieved. Economic policy objectives were reaffirmed and specific policy themes were emphasised in the resolutions adopted by the NGC. These resolutions were translated into government programmes and were, to a large extent, subsequently implemented. (See Part Two of this document for a more detailed review of progress in implementing the Mafikeng resolutions).
Implementation: Progress since 1994 16 Ahead of the 51st National Conference, it is important to once again reflect on progress made in transforming our economy since 1994.
The economy has grown since 1994. Although the growth rate has been slow, averaging 2% since 1994, a consistent increase in GDP is significant in the context of several external economic shocks that impacted severely on other developing economies such as the Asian financial crisis and the recession in the US and other major markets. Unfortunately, the rate of growth in GDP has not been sufficient to increase per capita GDP or living standards.
Investment rose from 15 per cent of GDP in 1993 to 17 per cent in 1998, and then fell to around 15 per cent in 2001. While it was higher than before 1994 for most of the period, it remained far below the 20 to 25 per cent required for rapid economic growth. Foreign investment gained ground rapidly until the late 1990s. Portfolio investment fluctuated, but climbed from virtually nothing to R83 billion in 1999. It then plummeted to R12 billion -presumably one factor behind the decline in overall investment. The reasons for the drop remain unclear. Foreign direct investment averaged around R10 billion a year in 1997-2000. Again, this contrasted with a virtual drought of foreign direct investment in the early 1990s.
Exports of manufactured goods, including refined minerals, have grown very rapidly indeed. Exports of transport equipment, tobacco, wood products and clothing have grown fastest, at between 10 and 29 per cent a year in the past five years. Refined metals, mostly iron and steel, still provide the bulk of exports. But automobiles and parts have tripled in size since 1996, to around a fifth of the total. In 1997 South Africa exported around 10 000 cars; the figure multiplied nine times by 2001. Exports of components increased from R4 billion in 1996 to R12 billion in 2000.
Our fiscal policy has achieved substantial cuts in tax rates and a major decline in the budget deficit. These achievements stabilised the macroeconomic balances of the economy, although they did mean that government spending declined in the late 1990s in real terms. >From 2001, we have seen a substantially increased spending on infrastructure, the social services and defence. This was possible in the context of lower government debt payments, lower interest rates and reduced public debt.
Inflation fell quite steadily from 1994, falling below 4 per cent in 2001. This decline was in line with international trends. The Reserve Bank responded with a significant cut in interest rates. 2002 saw an increase in inflation because of the depreciation of the rand and increased food prices. In response, the Reserve Bank has again raised interest rates, although they remain far below their peaks in the late 1990s, when the prime rate rose above 20 per cent.
In terms of labour relations, strike days fell by around half in 1994. Although they increased again gradually from the late 1990s, they remain far below the levels of the early 1990s. Average wage increases have slowed from 4 to 5 per cent above inflation to 1 to 2 per cent above inflation. In addition, the labour force has become substantially better educated. Some 72 per cent of people aged 15 to 35 have some secondary school, compared to around 51 per cent for those over 35.
The level of unemployment has not dropped. The economy is creating new jobs but not quickly enough to absorb new entrants to the labour market. In addition, most new employment creation in the formal sector is for highly-skilled labour.. There are indications that jobs are being created in the informal sector. The quality of these jobs, in terms of wage levels and job security, is often below that of formal sector employment. According to the 2000 Labour Force Survey, 62 per cent of informal jobs paid less than R500 a month, compared to 11 per cent of formal positions. There is thus a structural unemployment problem in the labour market.
Basic services - especially housing, electricity, water and telecommunications - have been extended to many more poor households and communities. Unfortunately, they cannot always afford to maintain the new infrastructure. The affordability of services needs to be examined. Services whose prices are determined/ administered by government must be further scrutinised. Improved poverty programmes have also helped relieve the burden of unemployment and higher prices on basic services. Free basic water and the child grant are major new measures, although their rollout is still incomplete. An integrated approach to food security to ensure the food security of households in the context of a liberalised agricultural sector is being implemented.
Poverty and inequality levels are being reduced through a range of instruments including the rollout of basic household infrastructure and services mentioned above, as well as specific projects such as community based public works programmes and the redistributive character of the Budget. More is required before significant improvements in the overall distribution of wealth and income will be achieved.
In general, the apartheid economy that we inherited was characterised by reliance on mineral exports, domination by a few white-owned monopolies, high tariff barriers, declining levels of employment, racially entrenched skills divisions and an ineffective public sector. The democratic government has broken with this pattern in key areas, opening the door to diversification of exports, lower tariffs, broader access to skills and a more efficient and effective state structure. We must not underestimate the importance of these achievements. Still, while the platform has been laid, much more work must be done to improve the lives of our people. We need more focused efforts to create employment, increase economic opportunities for the mass of black people, and improve the lives of the poor.
Impact of our policies
The fundamental question that we must answer is whether or not the implementation of key economic strategies in the past seven years has translated into a better life for all. In answering this question we must acknowledge the achievements that have been made as well as the stark economic realities that still confront many of the people of South Africa.
The 50th National Conference in 1997 affirmed the following economic policy objectives:
The Mafikeng Conference also emphasised four critical areas of work for transforming the economy:
In this context, Conference emphasised the need for rural development and the improvement of the position of women. More specifically, the Mafikeng resolution stressed that the Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy adopted in 1996 - the GEAR - aims, not to replace the RDP, but to implement its commitment to macroeconomic stability. The conference endorsed the basic objective of macro-economic stability, and saw the GEAR as a basis for achieving it. Like other policies, however, the conference said the GEAR should be reviewed, monitored and adjusted through ANC and Alliance policy processes.
Upon review of progress achieved since 1994, the ANC recognised that a coordinated package of sectoral policies and programmes underpinned by cross-cutting strategies were needed to effect economic transformation. The objectives set out required the interaction and integration of various sectoral policy initiatives, including fiscal and monetary policy; trade and industrial policy; liquid fuels and energy; mining and minerals; agriculture; fisheries; tourism; and science and technology. Cross-cutting policy programmes needed to effect economic transformation were an employment strategy, rural development, the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, and a national empowerment strategy
The Conference also pointed to the impact of trends in the global economy, within which South Africa is a small player, as well as resource limitations. It argued that globalisation brings important opportunities but also real dangers and constraints for the economy.
Micro Economic Reforms: Building on the Mafikeng resolutions, government adopted a combination of cross-cutting and sectoral policies in the form of an Integrated Economic Action Plan in 2001. This plan was reinforced in a Microeconomic Reform Strategy in 2002.
This plan built upon macroeconomic stability and the initial set of microeconomic policy reforms initiated after 1994. These initial reforms included agricultural and land reform, the introduction of a modern labour relations regime, a move away from expensive subsidies to firms, new competition policy, the establishment of institutions to support small enterprises, a comprehensive skills development framework, and a number of sector-specific strategies. In many cases, these microeconomic reforms were subject to consultation, and even negotiation, with capital and labour under the auspices of Nedlac.
In many cases these reforms were successful, however, they did not completely remove the constraints to accelerated levels of growth in the economy. Many of the constraints exist in both the developed and underdeveloped aspects of the economy. In the developed economy there are impediments to cost competitiveness such as the fees charged by certain state-owned enterprises impeding the efficiency of supply chains. In the underdeveloped economy there is a lack of basic infrastructure, especially roads and communications.
Impediments to cost competitiveness and job creation exist in the labour market as a result of a mismatch of labour demand and supply, the low levels of education and skills of the workforce, and the need for ongoing review of labour market regulation. There is also technological under-provision: per capita expenditure on IT is low compared to South Africa's competitors, investment in research and development is low, public science and technology infrastructure is weak, and there are low levels of public science awareness. Further, there are low levels of integration in the manufacturing process contributing to insufficient value addition, and there is inadequate investment in equipment and machine tools, knowledge and training.
Government's microeconomic reform strategy sets out to address these constraints in an integrated manner and to accelerate levels of growth, greater equity in our society, black economic empowerment, small business development, competitiveness of our enterprises, and a more equal geographic distribution of productive activity. There are three key elements to the strategy:
Government has implemented the strategy. Progress has been recorded in all areas of the strategy, although after only 18-months it is difficult to assess the impact of the strategy on objectives. Progress has been made in the national electrification programme, the development of gas infrastructure and the restructuring of the electricity industry. The managed liberalisation of the telecommunications sector is underway opening up new opportunities for the historically disadvantaged. Investments have been made in rail, roads and ports infrastructure. The integrated human resource development strategy is being implemented and a new national strategy for research and development, as well as biotechnology, has been developed. Sectoral plans are also being implemented and are subject to ongoing review.
The Microeconomic Reform Strategy does not represent the totality of government's economic transformation agenda. Rather it is an attempt to integrate those strategies and programmes critical to accelerating growth. A range of more specific strategies complement the Microeconomic Reform Strategy such as the strategic plan for agriculture, the integrated manufacturing strategy, and the tourism transformation plan. Also detailed strategies on access to finance, black economic empowerment, integrated approaches to small business development and an integrated employment strategy will complement the Microeconomic Reform Strategy. The Microeconomic Reform Strategy has been welcomed as a sign of greater policy consistency from government.
Impact on poverty: A critical challenge is to define how best to ensure that the benefits of our economic reforms reach the poor. In the long run, we can only end poverty through a process of shared economic growth, in which the growth path is reshaped to benefit all our people by creating economic opportunities on a mass scale.
In governing for the future, as opposed to the immediate short term, growth sits at the center of everything that can make a country better. With growth poverty decreases, with productive sector growth job creation occurs, when people have jobs they can pay for schooling, pay rates and taxes etc. It is the non-negotiable starting point for a better country and a sustainable future. We must move away from the belief that the country can be made better via direct fiscal transfer. It is more sustainable for every person to benefit from shared growth: an individual can benefit directly through getting a job, a pay rise, better profits, or an individual can benefit indirectly through better services and improved social security paid for by the increase in government revenues resulting from economic growth.
The notion of shared growth implies that the ANC, as a movement, and the ANC, as government, implements a deliberate strategy to ensure the growth is accelerated and also to ensure that the benefits of growth are indeed equitably shared. A process of economic reform or transformation typically requires a series of trade-offs between the various 'winners' and 'losers' of the reform measures in order to ensure that gains and losses from the reform measures are equitably shared. This process is necessary to ensure continued support for the transformation process.
The National Economic Development and Labour Council was established to oversee this process. Numerous agreements have been concluded between the state, capital and labour under the auspices of Nedlac. This was done in a piece-meal fashion and did not translate into an equitable share of the rewards (and pains) of economic reform. The state has often failed to extract trade-offs from either capital or labour for various initiatives.
Role of the state in the economy: As the most significant player in the economy and as the custodian of democratic values in society, the state has a key role to play in transforming the economy, improving levels of productivity, encouraging investment and broadening economic opportunities to the historically disadvantaged.
If the state doesn't educate, prevent diseases and prevent crime; can any economic strategy succeed? The debates in the 1980s and early 1990s about whether South Africa needs a smaller state or a larger state provides an unhelpful start to a discussion on the role of the state in society. What is clear is that South Africa needs a more effective state. We need a state that knows what it should be doing, how to do it and to do it well. The delivery of basic services to the poor, reduction in crime levels, providing quality education, preventing the spread of diseases and safeguarding our hard-fought democratic rights are key economic imperatives for South Africa. Improvements in the capacity of the state are a critical element of an economic transformation strategy.
An effective state is not just about delivering services, it is also about developing the appropriate regulatory frameworks. These regulatory frameworks are part of the arsenal of the state to achieve its objectives. The aim of our regulatory framework must be to balance the need to allow markets to function as efficiently as possible with the need to protect consumers from unscrupulous operators.
More emphasis needs to be placed on the appropriate regulation of public utilities and the adoption of business plans by state-owned enterprises that support economic transformation. This is critical if the programme of restructuring of state-owned enterprises is to avoid the creation of private monopolies rather than the provision of efficient utilities.
Many agencies were established in the early years of our democracy to overcome capacity constraints in an untransformed state. These agencies have played an important function in expanding service delivery in new areas, for example, Ntsika's delivery of non-financial support to small enterprises. Such agencies often provide very specialised services. The time has come for the mandates and performance of these agencies to be reviewed in order to assess what has worked well and what can be improved. Some agencies have suffered from 'mandate-creep', poor corporate governance and inefficiency. The management of agencies by the state needs to be given greater attention to ensure an alignment of the work of agencies and government strategies.
Accelerating growth and development: Growing the productive side of the economy is key to sustainable growth, job creation and the eradication of poverty in our country. The strategy needs to address three important economic challenges.
First, it needs to increase domestic supply and demand. Expanding the domestic capacity of the economy will result in expanded job opportunities, increase in the levels of disposable income and lead to higher levels of domestic demand. This can be done through anti-poverty measures, government spending on infrastructure and basic services, and strategies to create jobs and increase production of basic goods and services for the poor. More robust domestic demand should give local companies a more stable basis for engaging with the international economy.
Second, a robust domestic economy will provide the platform for our enterprises to meet competition from imports as well as expand production through selling to foreign markets. Our economy needs to generate sufficient foreign exchange to finance the imports we need in order to maintain the growth momentum. Therefore the competitive focus remains an important part of the strategy to overcome what is often referred to as the balance of payments constraint.
Third, we need to define more clearly the role of support for micro producers and very poor rural and urban communities. Most institutions and systems in both the public and private sector have proven ineffective in these environments. We need to define responsibilities, structures and resourcing to address these needs. For instance, how should parastatals decide between infrastructure demands from formal business and poor households?
In this context producing globally competitive enterprises becomes a key policy strategy. The changes that the economy has undergone over the last decade and the changes in the world economy place South Africa at an advantageous position. The macroeconomic reforms have improved the environment for investment in South Africa. Reforms to the trade and industrial structure of the economy have taken us away from the dominance of large resource-based conglomerates towards a broader, more outward looking focus. At the same time, the developments in IT, global trade, transport and telecommunications lay the basis for a fundamental shift in how the South African economy will develop. Most significantly, all the changes outlined above remove the bias towards big companies. Small-and medium-sized enterprises can thrive in an environment where ideas are developed and traded.
South Africa can combine its rich natural resources, its good infrastructure, its sound economic fundamentals and its people to expand the manufacturing and services sectors. The Accelerating Growth and Development paper presented at the Ekurhuleni meeting summarises an integrated approach towards creating globally competitive enterprises. Growing the productive side of the economy is important not simply from an export (and therefore balance of payments) point of view but also it is the key to stimulate the domestic economy. Financing economic activity requires much higher levels of savings and investment. In this context foreign investment will continue to play an important role. However, it is important to recognise that ultimately it is domestic investment and savings that will drive higher levels of economic activity. In this regard we should endorse the Ekurhuleni Declaration on investment.
Globalisation allows South Africa to engage with the rest of the world in a manner that boosts opportunities for trade, for investment and for technology transfer. However, globalisation has significant threats, that as a democratic state, we must be aware of. Globalisation has the ability to force countries into a race to the bottom. Competition for lower taxes and cheap labour drives wages down, drives multinationals to the next low wage tax haven and reduces the resources of the state to deliver on its mandate. Improving the human capital of a country is a key element of protecting the poor against the negative effects of globalisation. Adequate social assistance too is part of the package the developing countries need. We can reap significant benefits from globalisation but at the same time, skills development is one element that must be used to cushion against job losses.
However, the set of forces shaping the global economy is not static or apolitical. It is possible to shape these forces, mitigate against their deleterious effects or harness their positive potential. Since the 50th NGC our understanding of globalisation has advanced.
South Africa is well positioned in a number of global initiatives. These include the Summit on Financing for Development, the World Food Summit, and the upcoming WSSD. In addition, South Africa plays an important leadership role at the World Trade Organisation, the International Labour Organisation, and other multilateral fora.
Opportunities to shape the agenda on important matters such as the reform of financial flows and world trade, global public goods, labour standards, and sustainable development, need to be exploited to promote the interests of South Africa, Africa and the rest of the developing world. Multilateral systems and institutions need to be strengthened to reduce opportunities for unilateral action.
The success of the macroeconomic stabilisation strategy has opened up a greater set of policy options to address economic transformation. The state has earned credibility for reducing the budget deficit and improving fiscal management. Strategies for poverty alleviation and development can now be introduced that would have been negatively received a few years ago.
The Policy making process: A clear policy-making process is required that clarifies the roles of the party, particularly branch structures, the ANC's alliance partners, and the State. The management of the process is important to avoid mixed messages that impact negatively on confidence and certainty. Policy objectives need to be clearly articulated by the ANC to avoid varying interpretations at the implementation phase, as well as to avoid conflict between sectoral objectives and economy-wide objectives. There are inherent problems in assessing the impact of policies and this is exacerbated by the inadequate monitoring and evaluation systems in the measurable objectives, poorly defined outputs, the absence of appropriate performance indicators, as well as the lack of reliable data and statistics in some areas. Further, the ANC cannot rely on the monitoring and evaluation systems of the state. There is a need for independent assessment of the impact of the state's programmes.
Review of progress - cross-cutting issues
This section of the report examines the progress that has been made since the Mafikeng General Conference in 1997.
Fiscal and Monetary policy: Fiscal policy determines the level of government borrowing and taxation as well as the allocation of resources between government functions. Monetary policy refers to policies on the value of the rand in terms of both inflation and foreign exchange rates, largely through the Reserve Bank's stance on interest rates.
The emphasis of fiscal policy is on growing GDP, improving revenue recovery, and more effective expenditure in order to make more resources available for transformation. In the process of raising new funds, applying the ratios of the deficit, borrowing, and taxation to GDP will be taken into account.
The country has achieved macroeconomic stabilisation, characterised by an accelerated reduction in the budget deficit and sustainable reductions in the inflation rate and interest rates. Personal and corporate tax rates have been reduced. This stability has reduced the vulnerability of the economy to external shocks such as recent recession in many parts of the world and the depreciation of the currency. Consequently, the climate for investment has improved.
The scrapping of the 'financial rand' has contributed to a more competitive exchange rate. The introduction of inflation-targeting has also contributed to stability and transparency in monetary policy. In 2000, the Reserve Bank introduced a policy of inflation targeting, aiming to achieve 3 to 6 per cent inflation rate by 2003. This was a shift from the earlier policy, which did not set an explicit target but implicitly aimed to eliminate inflation altogether.
Government has ensured that a greater share of resources go to priorities areas like education, health and social welfare targeted to the poor. From around 2000, the decline in interest rates has reduced the cost of debt to the state. As a result, government has been able to expand spending on major services substantially, without changing the GEAR targets. Government has voiced a commitment to maintaining real growth in expenditure.
In the last two years, government has also greatly increased the funding available for infrastructure. A framework for public-private partnerships has been put into place to leverage additional resources for infrastructure investment.
Government has also introduced strong measures to improve financial management, notably through the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) and a similar bill on local government. The MTEF projects government spending for three years into the future. That lays the foundation for a longer-term approach to expenditure, which in turn should permit more systematic transformation programmes. The new legal framework sets clear parameters for government spending and establishes capacity building mechanisms. Within this framework, new regulations decentralise control over spending in order to improve flexibility and efficiency.
South Africa underwent a massive change in the budget process in the two years after 1994. On the one hand, there was a process of integrating the former homeland budgets and parallel administrations into a single national budget. On the other, almost immediately a process began of dividing the budget for health, education, welfare and a number of other functions between the provinces. This was undertaken through the allocation of lump sums to provinces, which in turn were expected to develop their own budgets. In itself, this process caused considerable dislocation and required huge management effort. This has also had implications for those policy areas that are concurrent responsibilities of provincial and national departments.
Restructuring of State-owned enterprises: The Mafikeng Conference argued that the restructuring of state-owned enterprises is an integral part of the transformation of the economy. The process has four aims:
Government has implemented ANC policy and has adopted a case-by-case approach to restructuring and restructuring decisions are made according to the following criteria:
On this basis, government has:
A number of challenges remain. Among these is the continued monitoring and assessment of restructuring processes, some of which occur in environments that are subject to global market conditions and the needs of increased competitiveness of some sectors (e.g. ports). The coordination and implementation of Social Plan programmes is critical. The integration and impact of government's social policies as far as these derive from inputs from state-owned enterprise require careful assessment and monitoring.
Government has indicated its commitment to continual assessment to ensure that each instance of restructuring of state-owned enterprise aligns with overall objectives. It also says regulatory frameworks will be strengthened to guide markets toward more desirable outcomes.
Rural development: The vision of the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme (ISRDP) is "to attain socially cohesive and stable communities with viable institutions, sustainable economies and universal access to social amenities, able to attract skilled and knowledgeable people, equipped to contribute to their own and the nation's growth and development." It identifies four key areas - land reform, enhancing economic opportunities and promoting community ownership, access to finance, and investment in rural infrastructure.
Progress has been achieved in putting together the institutional and management arrangements necessary for the successful roll out of the ISRDP, including the appointment of political champions in each of the designated nodes. Projects worth R584m have been identified for implementation in 2002/03 financial years. All of the 13 nodes have completed their Integrated Development Plans (IDPs).
Science and Technology: The core vision of the White Paper on Science and Technology is a national system of innovation to harness the diverse aspects of science and technology through the various institutions where they are developed, practised or utilised. No government can order innovation to take place, but government can ensure that a competent pool of expertise from which innovation can spring is grown and maintained, and government can create an environment in which research and development can take place.
Key steps include:
Investment in skills levels at all levels, with improvements in mathematics, science and technology as a fundamental goal.
Ensuring technology meets basic needs, with the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology playing a co-ordinating role.
Establishing the National Advisory Council on Innovation to advise the Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology on the role and contribution of science, mathematics, innovation and technology, including indigenous technologies, in promoting and achieving national objectives.
In addition, in 2002, government established the National Commission on Information Society and Development, which is constituted from representatives of South Africa's public and private sectors. It also set up the Presidential International Task Force on Information Society and Development. The taskforce will comprise the heads of international corporations and experts in information and communication technology. The Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology has produced a Research and Development Strategy, which seeks to ensure the coordination between industrial policy and research and development policy.
Across the world, in response to the increasing rates of knowledge production, dissemination and application, the shortening of product life cycles and the increasing competition for human resources, many countries are increasing their national investment in research and development (R&D). South African science and technology has made strides since Mafikeng. Big science projects such as the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), which will give world-class infrastructure to African scientists, contrast with rapidly growing technology incubator programmes for small business. Regional systems of innovation (a feature of technically developed nations) have begun to emerge in Gauteng and in the Western Cape.
A forward-looking orientation has been adopted to engage with new technologies (for example biotechnology and information and communication technologies). This poses a challenge to branches in terms of people's ability to deepen their understanding of these technologies and exploit the opportunities they present for accelerated economic and social development.
Review of progress - Sectors
Agriculture: Since 1994, government policy has focused on establishing free markets in agriculture and redirecting government support (including Land Bank credit) to black farmers. This strategy is incorporated in a range of policies, beginning with the Broadening Access to Agriculture thrust, as well as the recent Strategic Plan for Agriculture that was developed with farmers' associations. At the same time, government has sought to accelerate land reform, and the reform of state institutions responsible for farmer support programmes and other agricultural advisory services.
In line with this overall strategy, the control boards and other kinds of support given to commercial farmers under apartheid have been removed, and agricultural markets have been rapidly deregulated. At the same time, the dti has pushed for increased access for South African agricultural exports to foreign markets.
In part, the deregulated approach was justified by the argument (endorsed at Mafikeng) that household food security did not necessarily require national food self-sufficiency. Ensuring household food security is a complex issue and to this end an integrated food security strategy has been developed.
Housing: The National Housing Framework (NHF) process, which culminated in the Housing White Paper, the Development Facilitation Act, the RDP, GEAR, the Housing Act, the Constitution and the Housing Code, established the core policy that drives the government's housing programme. Its principles are: People-centred development and partnerships; Skills transfer and economic empowerment; Fairness and equity; Choice; Quality and affordability; Innovation; Transparency, accountability and monitoring and Sustainability and fiscal affordability
In 1997 government promulgated the Housing Act to provide a comprehensive regulatory framework for the effective delivery of housing for poor households in South Africa. Amongst others, the Act defined the roles and functions of the three spheres of government in housing delivery. It obliged the Minister of Housing to phase out the housing subsidies inherited from apartheid, which had essentially benefited a few privileged groups, and provided for a National Housing Code.
The Housing Amendment Bill of 2001 transferred the powers, duties, rights and obligations of Provincial Housing Development Boards to the MECs responsible for Housing. It also limited the sale of houses obtained through state subsidies. Finally, in 2002 the Housing Department introduced additional changes in policy aimed at improving provision for the poor. The new policy sought to ensure community mobilisation to support housing delivery, in part by requiring all recipients to contribute either work or funding to their state-subsidised housing.
Industrial and Trade Strategy: Market access opportunities have been secured through a range of bilateral trade agreements, and a developmental agenda has been adopted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a result of South Africa's strategic engagement with countries of the South and leadership at the WTO. Trade with Africa has increased significantly and economic integration strengthened through the SADC free-trade agreement and the renegotiation of the SACU agreement.
With respect to creating more opportunities in domestic markets, a more equitable and efficient regulatory system has been introduced including new competition law, consumer protection, and the regulation of gambling. Regulators have also been established to protect the public interest in several economic sectors including telecommunications and energy.
Small business development legislation and a supporting institutional framework have been established to provide financial and non-financial support to entrepreneurs. Reforms to government procurement have opened up new opportunities for historically disadvantaged individuals. A more targeted approach to the needs of micro-entrepreneurs is being developed.
A range of supply-side support measures and incentives to promote investment, competitiveness, the adoption of new technologies, innovation, and production for export, has been put into place.
Investment promotion activities have included marketing campaigns, incentives, and specific state-led investment projects in spatial development initiatives, industrial development zones, as well as through the national industrial participation programme. The mandate of the Industrial Development Corporation was amended to promote transformation objectives.
Recently legislation has been drafted to provide for cooperatives to become legal entities and thus access various support measures for enterprises. Work with the Department of Agriculture and the DTI will continue to give effect to greater support measures to support cooperatives.
A number of sector strategies have been implemented. The most successful example of these is the motor industry development plan.
The Integrated Manufacturing Strategy seeks to take these achievements forward by focusing on the inter-linkages between economic sectors in order to identify areas for focused intervention by the state (at times acting in concert with the private sector). The strategy takes a more explicit approach to implementing sector strategies and a more active role for the state.
The redistribution programme seeks to improve the livelihoods of poor South Africans by providing land for housing, agricultural production and other types of production such as eco-tourism. In essence, the government provides a grant, the size of which depends on how much the beneficiary can contribute in kind, cash and/or labour. Although the grant initially provided for groups, more recently it has gone only to individuals.
Tenure reform defines the obligatory rights and duties between landlords and tenants. It seeks to establish the land rights of more than six million inhabitants who, for decades, have informally occupied land that they do not own, often by agreement with the landlord. These groups of people are vulnerable to eviction by the landlord. As a result, they live in a constant state of insecurity, and cannot develop and improve their land.
The land reform process initially relied heavily on complex procedures designed to ensure legality and consultation. To meet quantitative targets, it aimed to settle relatively large groups of beneficiaries on big pieces of land. This system led to long delays in the adjudication process
Starting in 1998, the process has been reformed so that settlements are now determined more by their ability to improve productivity. The Integrated Programme of Land Redistribution and Agricultural Development (IPLRAD) targets not only the number of households benefiting and the hectares of land transferred, but also sustainability of natural resources and wealth in agricultural production and commonage projects.
Marine fisheries: South Africa's fishing industry experienced a turbulent history under the apartheid system. During this period, the state excluded coastal communities and black people from the fishing sector and favoured big companies. When apartheid came to end, an effort was made to include the previously excluded communities, largely through the distribution of transferable paper-quotas.
The 1998 Marine Living Resources Act sought to set out a policy framework that would reconcile the interest of all concerned parties. Amongst the principal aims set out in the Act were:
to achieve optimum utilisation and ecologically sustainable development of marine living resources;
to restructure the fishing industry to address historical imbalances and to achieve equity within all branches of the fishing industry.
The White Paper on Fisheries Policy outlines several ways the existing large players can meet the empowerment criteria needed to compete for access rights:
The South African fisheries industry has been fundamentally transformed with the implementation of a system for the equitable allocation of fishing rights to the commercial fishing industry and to historically disadvantaged communities and individuals. A high degree of black economic empowerment has been achieved in terms of the ownership of assets in the industry, as well as employment equity in the commercial fishing industry.
Minerals: The Minerals Act of 1991 regulated the prospecting for and optimal exploitation of minerals, and the rehabilitation of the surface of land during and after prospecting and mining operations. In 2002, the Ministry introduced the Minerals and Petroleum Development Act, which will vest all mineral rights in the state, giving private companies access only if they will use them productively.
In 1996, the government also introduced the Mine Health and Safety Act, which vastly improved systems for occupational health and safety around the mines.
Strategies to modernise and transform the mining industry include investment promotion, extending access to mineral rights, management of exploration information, human resources development, support for small-scale mining, beneficiation of minerals, and a social plan to address the negative consequences of restructuring in the sector. Programmes have been implemented to promote the beneficiation of minerals as well as to provide capital for small-scale mining ventures. Legislation currently in Parliament seeks to bring about a significant change in the ownership of the mining industry in South Africa. A new mine health and safety regime has brought about a reduction in fatalities and injuries in the mining industry.
Transport: Government policies on transport, as articulated in the White Paper as well as Moving South Africa, call for
Other policies, for instance around safety and standards, will be dealt with in the policy review for social development.
Tourism: Currently, South African tourism in urban areas is saturated, while little significant tourism investment has taken place in rural areas and peri-urban areas. So there is a strong argument to be made for targeted investment in these regions. Depressed rural and peri-urban areas often have great potential for nature and adventure tourism. Improving access to these regions could help turn around the fortunes of poor people in such an area.
In this context, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) has targeted:
Spatial Development Initiatives such as the Lubombo SDI and the Wild Coast SDI.
Priority Areas for Tourism Infrastructure Investment (PATIIs). These are areas of high potential.
World Heritage Sites and Cultural Heritage Sites like Robben Island, St Lucia, Ukahlamba-Drakensberg and Sterkfontein Caves.
National parks and reserves.
Transfrontier conservation areas like Kgalagadi and Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou.
Wetlands of international importance.
Biosphere reserves.
To improve synergy between different spheres of government, DEAT has reached a range of agreements, for instance so that local government authorities will assist in cleaning up litter in tourist areas; the Department of Transport will improve road signage; and Government Communication and Information Services is developing and communicating the brand identity "South Africa Incorporated".
The DEAT is looking at ways of allowing more previously disadvantaged people to benefit from local and foreign tourism. The Business Trust, through a programme called Tourism Enterprise Programme (TEP), has made R66 million over four years available for the development of small and medium-sized tourism businesses. This is expected to yield an eventual total transaction cost of R475 million.
Challenges and issues for discussions and resolutions
Employment strategy
The Mafikeng Resolution: Conference called on the Alliance to establish an employment strategy, which would include sectoral, spatial and labour-market measures to be cemented at a Presidential Jobs Summit with social partners. The strategy would include:
The Conference noted that this strategy would generally require more investment, both through the public sector and by encouraging higher private savings. Generally, the strategy called for higher productivity and greater international competitiveness as the source of resources for investment.
Progress: Although government has taken a wide range of steps to raise the levels of employment, it has only recently sought to take a more integrated approach to the unemployment problem. Existing policies include land reform and agricultural policies, small and micro-enterprise development, skills development, and industrial policy.
Government's direct employment creation efforts have tended towards poverty relief programmes creating temporary employment through various forms of public works projects. Total employment creation reportedly came to roughly 150 000 mostly temporary jobs in 2000-'01.
The Presidential Jobs Summit was held in October 1998. However, many of the agreements were vague and lacked practical steps to be taken and were not aligned with government expenditure plans. Not all of the agreements were subsequently implemented. Some of the more successful agreements have been the Proudly South African campaign, the convening of a number of sector summits, and a framework agreement on a social plan to ameliorate some of the consequences of sector restructuring.
Labour law on retrenchments has been amended to make it more difficult for employers to retrench workers without fully considering other options. Wage incentive legislation is currently before Parliament to incentivise the employment of previously unemployed persons on learnership contracts. The Department of Labour is leading this process.
Government is looking at how to capture in a more coordinated manner the range of government instruments available to tackle the problem. The strategy also examined the nature and character of unemployment and the structural issues which result in unemployment.
Debates and Challenges: It is clear that the fight against unemployment is our central challenge. The need for sustainable jobs is glaring, but we should have no illusions. There are no magic solutions or quick fixes. Unemployment in South Africa is a deep, structural problem, reflecting the large inequalities we inherited in ownership and skills. New jobs will not be generated overnight, at least not in the numbers we need. Fighting unemployment will be a long haul.
We must be careful to separate out issues about poverty eradication and issues about the creation of sustainable jobs when considering the employment question. While these two objectives are linked they require different approaches. Comprehensive public works programmes as part of a community development programme are useful short-term strategies but are not a by themselves a long-term solution. Community development programmes will also create jobs through improved social services. The linkages with other strategies for small business development and black economic empowerment must be made explicit for these also need to be part of the total package of strategies to address unemployment.
There is a need to identify labour-intensive activities in our economy and find appropriate tools to promote and extend such activities on a sustainable basis. The integrated value matrix is a useful concept for identifying the labour-intensive activities within value chains and sectors. This is not as simple as designating certain industries that employ large numbers of workers as labour-intensive and promoting them. It is important to look at capital-labour ratios in sectors and, where appropriate, introduce incentives to change these ratios in favour of labour. Skills levels need to be taken into account too, many labour-intensive services are also skills-intensive. Thus targeted skills development is another crucial component of an employment strategy.
There is a clear skills dimension to the unemployment problem in South Africa. Unskilled and semi-skilled labour is more affected by unemployment, however, there is also an age dimension to unemployment that indicates that workers with some job experience are more likely to find new employment.
Many of the steps taken by government to tackle unemployment would have had a greater impact on the problem if they had been implemented in a more integrated manner. In addition, more work needs to be done to review the range of government incentives and support measures for their impact on the relative costs of labour and capital for enterprises.
In charting a way forward, we need to take into account the following:
The high unemployment rate in South Africa must also be viewed in the context of a limited social safety net. If government does not strengthen welfare and involve the unemployed in community development projects we will continue to have unacceptable levels of poverty and social isolation.
Investment and Infrastructure
Mafikeng resolution: There was no clear resolution on investment and infrastructure taken at the Mafikeng Conference. It is important to recognise the important role of investment in infrastructure and raising growth levels in the economy. Well-targeted public infrastructure investment must complement industrial growth and investment.
Infrastructure supports development because:
The importance of infrastructure investment to economic growth is provided by studies that indicate that for every 10% increase in the stock of public infrastructure capital is associated with an increase in output of between 2 and 3 percent.
Investment in new infrastructure and the maintenance and rehabilitation of existing infrastructure needs to be a key priority for government expenditure. Infrastructure priorities include the provision of social infrastructure, including schools, community roads, health facilities, pension payout points, revitalising hospital infrastructure, improving courts and policing infrastructure, rail commuter infrastructure, and extending basic service infrastructure in poor communities.
A lot of has been to done to provide a conducive environment for investment in South Africa including a constitution that protects private property rights, national treatment for foreign investors, a large reduction in the level of government dissaving, a range of investment incentives, investment promotion and facilitation activities, as well as greater levels of policy certainty and stability.
Debates and Challenges: Changes in global capital markets have had implications for a national strategy to increase investment. Financial deregulation, real-time cross-border flows, new financial instruments and institutions have all influenced the nature of investment decisions. This significantly increased the opportunity cost of working capital tied up in production. The increased mobility of capital resulted in increased competition for investments, often based on the extent of integration into the global economy.
Savings and investment levels in the economy are still too low to generate the rates of economic growth needed to sustainably address poverty and inequality in our country. Thus there is a reliance on foreign investment into the country. South Africa has attracted foreign direct investment into the economy since 1994 despite a weak global environment for investment into emerging markets. Perceptions of policy inconsistency, a weak skills base, high cost structures and regional issues continue to be provided as domestic reasons for low direct investment by both foreign and domestic investors.
The Ekurhuleni Declaration adopted by the Alliance in April this year reflects a commitment to ensuring that the resources in the retirement industry, the life assurance industry, and other forms of savings, are more effectively mobilised for the provision of social and economic infrastructure, as well as investment in labour-absorbing activities. It was also agreed that the presence of labour representatives on the boards of many of the funds would be used to ensure more effective strategic use of worker funds.
Infrastructure investment, led by the state but with significant input from the private sector, has three broad objectives. The first objective is to improve the capacity of the state to expand the scope of the services it delivers; the second is to bring economic and entrepreneurial activities closer to the poor and historically disadvantaged and thirdly, to lower the costs of doing business in South Africa.
The delivery of social infrastructure (water, sanitation, housing, schools, clinics) is designed to improve the ability of the state to deliver services to people who, were for decades, provided with either little or no services. Without water schemes, clinics, rural roads and classrooms, the state is not able to improve the quality of the services it delivers. The delivery of useful social infrastructure is a key element of the implementation of the RDP. It is both a means to improving the quality of life and an end in terms of improving the quality and dignity of the lives of the poor.
The provision of social infrastructure is key in redistributing wealth to the poor. The delivery of social infrastructure must seek to break the spatial patterns that Apartheid entrenched. We have a settlement pattern in South Africa that was designed to exclude large sections of the population from the mainstream of the economy. Social infrastructure must be targeted at providing basic services to all South Africans and must endeavor to make South Africa's cities more efficient.
Economic infrastructure on the other hand is aimed directly at lowering the costs of doing business in South Africa. Better rail, telecommunications, energy and transport infrastructure is able to make the South African economy more efficient, lowering the costs of production thereby improving the environment for investment and job creation.
South Africa, despite its relatively good infrastructure, has serious deficiencies that push up the costs of business. High telephone charges, wharfage costs, freight delays and an outdated rolling stock all push up the costs of business, directly reducing the profitability of companies and discouraging investment. Job creation will only be sustainable if levels of investment improve. Government-led investment in economic infrastructure is designed to crowd in private sector investment.
The combination of social and economic infrastructure allows for easier access to economic opportunities to the poor. Poor rural roads raise the costs of taking produce the market, they raise the cost of a person going to the city to look for a job and most importantly, they further distort the economy by keeping economic opportunities to groups of people that have benefited in the past.
Government is piloting a new focus on critical infrastructure investment designed to improve the attractiveness of an area to investors. Through both direct infrastructure projects and tax incentives, government hopes to unlock the potential of key regions in the country. A change of strategy in government to respond to these challenges is evident. Higher levels of state investment in infrastructure and initiatives aimed at increasing exports are aimed at raising the level of investment in the South African economy.
Black Economic Empowerment
Mafikeng resolution: A the time of Mafikeng, the Black Economic Empowerment Commission had not yet reported, and the concept of BEE came under the National Empowerment Policy. The Mafikeng Conference resolved that:
The ANC should clearly articulate a National Empowerment Policy that will focus on those who have been historically disadvantaged and particularly black people, women, youth and the disabled and rural communities.
The empowerment process must constitute part of a more radical and profound change in social relations. Changing ownership and workplace relations are part of this wider process.
Within the National Empowerment Framework government should establish a National Empowerment Fund, which must stimulate savings, shift people from the informal to the formal sector, and guide SMMEs from the current predominance of retail to manufacturing.
Government policy: Government does not yet have a comprehensive policy on BEE, although every department has programmes to achieve this aim. Generally, these policies also favour the empowerment of women. They include:
Most recently, government has developed a BEE strategy, in part, in response to the publication of the BEE Commission report. This strategy defines black economic empowerment objectives in terms of ownership and control of the economy, as well as improvement in the levels of household income. A draft BEE Bill to allow for the issuing of codes of practice and that sets out empowerment measurement indicators, definitions and guidelines will be promulgated. Government offerings to qualifying BEE enterprises include:
Debates and Challenges: A clear national empowerment strategy has yet to be articulated. Such a strategy would contain specific instruments available to targeted groups to accelerate their economic and social integration. There is a clear overlap between the ANC's general transformation and development objectives and a national empowerment strategy. The absence of a national empowerment strategy has given rise to ambiguity about the definition of BEE and the character of the empowerment process. The fundamental question is whether BEE aims to ensure blacks are fairly represented among the top owners and managers of companies, or whether BEE aims to improve the position of all black people, especially women, through measures that ensure a more equitable distribution of incomes and assets overall.
The ANC has adopted the second view, which means that a national empowerment strategy includes such broad-based redistributive strategies as land reform, reprioritisation of government services and job creation. A specific strategy to ensure that the levels of ownership and control of the commanding heights of the economy by the majority is equitable - black economic empowerment - should form a part of a comprehensive national empowerment strategy. However, a national empowerment strategy is not limited to only a BEE strategy. The failure to make this explicit has led to the view that empowerment is geared primarily to supporting black capital. There has been increasing focus on BEE but this focus has not been situated within a national empowerment strategy. Programmes such as set-aside programmes for black investors when selling state assets and a bias toward black-owned companies in procurement have reinforced this perception.
Further, such initiatives have had mixed success: n Special Purpose Vehicles have left many BEE initiatives heavily indebted n BEE initiatives in strategic sectors of the economy that are particularly averse to transformation still need to be developed n Front companies are formed to take advantage of the preferential procurement system n 'Black-chip' shares on the JSE have performed poorly.
Except for the sectors run by state-owned companies like Telkom, Eskom and Transnet, white-owned and -controlled companies and managers still dominate the economy. Blacks and women own only a tiny fraction of the private formal sector, and are heavily under-represented in management and technical positions. The high-level of concentration of ownership in the economy is a significant constraint to BEE. BEE strategies must be located in a context of lowering barriers to entry and growing the number of opportunities in the economy generally.
Also, a major debate revolves around the usefulness of setting targets, and how targets should be understood. The ANC itself must do more to report and assess progress. On that basis, it may be possible to begin to develop clearer numerical objectives.
Financial sector restructuring
The financial sector includes all the institutions that deal with savings and loans, such as the regulators, the banks, community financial institutions, micro-lenders, government financial institutions like the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), Land Bank, Post Bank and Khula, and contractual savings funds - pension and provident funds, long-term life assurors and unit trusts. All of these institutions are important because: * The availability and cost of loans affects the level and nature of economic activity * The financial sector acts as an intermediary between savers and investors, and may therefore have an influence on the level and structure of investment.
The Mafikeng Conference did not adopt a resolution specifically on the financial sector. It did, however, repeatedly note the need to improve credit arrangements for small and micro enterprise, rural people and low-income housing.
The conference argued that government should continuously review its strategy with regard to the financial sector with the aim of enhancing its impact and involving more role players from all spheres of society.
The conference also called for engagement with the banking sector in order to influence its lending patterns and services in support of the historically disadvantaged communities. Public sector financial institutions were told to focus their support on these communities and to enhance their targeting to ensure maximum impact.
The National General Council in July 2000 committed the ANC to promoting the development of socially accountable capital, the allocation of capital to the benefit of disadvantaged people and communities, and equality in wealth by supporting increased ownership of assets by workers and communities.
The ANC's programme for economic transformation includes effective and realistic measures to reduce real interest rates and the cost of capital, especially for job-creating projects, small businesses and infrastructure development, and to direct the investible surpluses already accumulated in financial institutions and pensions to support economic transformation.
Since the Mafikeng conference issues around the financial services sector have become more prominent. It was raised at the NGC in 2000 and some of the debates on the sector have become institutionalised through a process in Nedlac to prepare a financial services sector summit.
In government, responsibility for the financial sector is split between the Reserve Bank, for commercial banks, and the Financial Services Board (FSB), for investment funds. The FSB is a joint venture between the Bank and major private financial companies.
Government does not have a White Paper on the financial sector. Its major concern has been balancing the need to protect savings and maintain South Africa's sophisticated financial networks while pushing for more innovative lending and investments. The inherited Banking Act and the FSB's regulations generally aim to reduce the risk to investors and to let the companies maximise returns, including by limited investments abroad.
Government has set up or redirected a range of specialised state-owned financial institutions: the LandBank for farmers, PostBank for rural savers, Khula for medium and small enterprise, the National Housing Finance Corporation for housing bonds, the DBSA for rural infrastructure and the IDC to package industrial finance. Actions have also been taken to improve consumer protection in the financial services sector including regulation of microlenders. Government is also working on improving regulations in the area of credit bureaus as well as community reinvestment legislation. Government has generally avoided strong regulations or direction for the established private companies. An exception is housing finance. Faced with the reluctance of the commercial banks and other financial institutions to lend to low-income home buyers, the Department of Housing has introduced a legislative package that, when finalised, will end redlining and other forms of discrimination, establish an ombuds system, and require banks to report on their home loans by size, race and gender. These laws only apply to home loans, however.
Debates and Challenges: The current Banking Act sets very high capital requirements for registered banks, making it difficult for smaller, community banks to function. The Reserve Bank has given village banks and co-operative banks an exemption from the Act so that they can operate.
Engagement at Nedlac in the run up to the Financial Sector Summit, now planned for mid-August, seems likely to lead to more explicit and vigorous measures to restructure the financial sector. In particular, some agreement seems likely on regulation of credit bureaus, development of more appropriate legislation for co-operative banks, anti-discrimination measures, and the direction of contractual savings toward more productive investments.
Restructuring of the financial system should be aimed at achieving the following three goals:
A critical question is whether the problems with the financial sector reflect inescapable economic imperatives, or the nature of the sector and its management. In the event, the sector is highly concentrated and conservative, which contributes to the failure to find more constructive and creative responses to South Africa's developmental challenges. But the financial sector alone cannot overcome the obstacles to development. By extension, measures to transform the financial system must be embedded in a coherent and comprehensive development strategy.
A variety of possible instruments exist for influencing decisions by financial institutions. They include the location of government accounts; requirements around the direction of credit and establishment of outlets; support to new kinds of borrowers; deposit guarantees to protect lower-income depositors; tax incentives or sanctions; anti-discrimination requirements and procedures; and direct support for innovative forms of financial ownership, such as co-operative banks and stokvels. In the absence of a coherent policy, however, these instruments have not been used to transform the financial sector.
The next five years
In the next five years, the objectives of the transformation programme should not change as there is still more to be done to fully attain these objectives.
However, there needs to be a redefinition of the agenda of the economic transformation programme. This redefinition needs to build upon the platform that was established in Mafikeng in 1997 and the subsequent implementation of strategies and programmes by the state.
Many of the broad strategies of the ANC's economic transformation programme are in place. These strategies need to be sharpened through the quantification of objectives and clearer programmes of action. A greater degree of consensus needs to be built around these strategies and the tools for implementation.
More attention must be paid to the political and technical management of the economic transformation programme. In particular, we need to focus on the sequencing of reforms, their overall coherence, partnerships for collective action, the ongoing transformation of the state into an effective agent for economic reform.
Introduction
The institutions of governance inherited by the ANC in 1994, were based on the values of colonialism, racism and sexism. It was assumed that only white males were able to exercise political, economic and social power, white women could have some social power, and black men and women had no power or skills and were only fit to serve.
The structures and systems were designed in a way that these relations between races and between men and women were perpetuated and since white men made all the major decisions, the situation was maintained.
Broadly - considering progress in terms of transformation of government and our governance relations - we can safely argue that we have succeeded in formulating adequate policy frameworks covering a wide range of issues that we needed to address in order to move beyond our apartheid legacy. We have successfully steered a policy and legislative reform programme since 1994 that is impressive by any standards - both in terms of content and volume. We have managed to change the structural landscape of a large institution like the public service over a very short period of time. In certain respects remarkable progress has been achieved at government level with the implementation of the policies that we have adopted. It is particularly in the domains of democratisation and building of representative structures that we have achieved significant success since 1994.
However, in the spirit of honest reflection, we need to acknowledge some problems. These problems, more often than not, are rooted in the vexed issue of limited capacity, both within government and within the ANC.
But our biggest governance related challenge for the 51st Conference is to get to the bottom of the problem regarding the shortcomings of the political management of our governance institutions. We need to identify and understand the systemic problems that are preventing performance as we anticipated, above all finding workable, implementable mechanisms that will eventually lead to a better life for the urban and rural poor.
The construction of a democratic society has been at the centre of the governance and transformation process, which is aimed at overcoming the political, social and economic problems of the past. In pursuing this objective a variety of policies have been developed to re-orient and re-unite South African society, mindful of the overall goal of building a democratic society, not only in a political sense, but also focusing on the socio-economic dimensions.
The Balance of Forces document reviews the tasks for consideration within the ambit of transforming the state in the current phase of struggle. Critical issues in the latter document are:
Whether the new doctrines that should guide each state organ are in place and do they pursue public resources to better the lives of the majority especially the poor;
Have be we been successful in determining the size of the state in line with its tasks.
Have state resources grown to meet its challenges and if so at what rate and in which areas is prioritisation taking place;
The issue of the patriarchal nature of the state has not been adequately addressed in a manner that impacts on all organs of state, particularly in government departments;
Have we ensured a balance between the macro-economic requirements and those of the poorest of the poor, within a sustainable environment;
To what end have we been able to manage the motive forces around a concrete programme on governance;
These areas require discussion so that we have a clear and comprehensive programme of state transformation and effective governance.
Transformation of the public service
ANC policy in the area of Public Service and Administration is not neatly contained in a single document, and needs to be constructed from a variety of source documents, the most important being Ready to Govern (1992), the RDP document of 1994, the Constitution of 1996, the most recent Strategy and Tactics adopted by the 50th National Conference of the ANC, as well as resolutions on Public Service and Administration adopted by successive national conferences.
Transformation of the public service/ sector is important - not only for functional reasons, but also for achieving the overall aims of the National Democratic Revolution. Many of the policy choices and issues in the public service and administration terrain have been recognised as intensely political. Such choices relate directly to thinking on the role of the state, what kind of state, what kind of coordination, accountability, delivery and governance arrangements, and so forth. Choices regarding public service transformation must therefore be compatible with our social goals and values and relevant to our circumstances.
After a reading of all the relevant ANC decisions and guiding documents we have to conclude that the most important dimensions to bear in mind when assessing progress with governance and public service transformation will require in-depth discussions in the following areas:
Leadership: This includes the degree to which the ruling party provides clear policy leadership; the degree of participation and inclusiveness of all policy processes, from decision-making through implementation and evaluation, both in the ANC and in government; and the extent to which the senior cadres, both in politically elected and administratively appointed capacities, are politically accountable.
Structures: The suitability and adequacy of structures and systems appropriate and adequate to achieve the priority goals of the developmental state; the integration of spheres of government to break the previous hierarchy of national to local top-down delivery streams through clarifying roles and relationships and enabling local development plans to feed into provincial and national planning; the existence of a single South African public service; and the quality and efficacy of cooperative governance in terms of achievement of integrated and participatory development;
Capability: A state capable of effective policy making, implementation and review; coordination and planning; intervention on behalf of the poor and marginalised; redistribution of power and resources so as to impact sustainably on the elimination of poverty; effective management and development, specifically re financial and human resources; and building NGO capacity for the development agenda.
Culture: An employment profile that is representative of the population; maintaining a management culture that is attentive to, and appreciative of the people employed; internal democracy (representative, participatory and direct), that will embrace transformed management practices and a progressive labour relations dispensation; a public service that is ethical accountable, impartial and equitable; a committed and loyal public service and administration which shows allegiance to the new order; an efficient, effective public service that avoids wasteful, misdirected and mismanaged development initiatives; and an administration responsive to the needs of the people.
Challenges and issues for discussion
Policy Leadership provided by the ruling party: The effectiveness of the political leadership and direction that is being provided between our ANC structures and the institutions of governance is still not functioning at its best.
In the first instance we need to acknowledge that our own internal policy processes did not improve as was envisaged during the 50th Conference. How can we further improve the internal ANC policy process, specifically implementation and monitoring of improvements to the ANC policy process itself, so that we are in a better position to track progress between conferences and report on achievements and impact at the next policy conference?
It could be argued those representatives of the ruling party in the national and provincial legislatures, as well as in local councils, are not optimally using their considerable legislative power in terms of either debating policies and legislation, or exercising their oversight role vis-à-vis the Executive. The situation is aggravated by the fast turnover of both elected and appointed officials.
Our policy leadership responsibility is further compromised by the general absence of reliable and appropriate information that will evaluate policy performance and the impact of our policy decisions. Where there is information available it is compiled and communicated by those responsible for implementation, which raises the question as to the reliability and validity of the evidence that is being presented to the Executive, Parliament and the ruling party.
To ensure that policy processes, from decision-making through implementation and evaluation, both within the ANC and in government, are participatory and inclusive.
As an organisation the ANC has not succeeded in enabling its members and branches, and society broadly, to use the opportunities that have been created for more direct democracy in the policy process. Parliament is not functioning as the Congress of the People as anticipated. Special groups of policy beneficiaries, e.g. rural women, are not enabled to hold government accountable when policy targeting is not benefiting them sufficiently, e.g. land redistribution.
Making Integrated and Cooperative Governance a reality: Effective delivery of services and achievement of government strategic objectives requires integrated planning and integrated budgeting processes. Whilst steps have been taken to enhance integration between government departments through an established cluster system, vertical integration remains a major challenge. Of particular importance is planning and budget integration with local government as well as alignment of various plans between different spheres of government
Whilst different structures have been created to enhance integrated governance and integrated planning, many of these remain ad-hoc or have not been integrated into the formal operations of government at both national, provincial and local government level, thus resulting in decisions which are not linked to integrated governance structures. Although integrated governance structures have been evolving and growing without legislative compulsion, the absence of a framework has resulted in fragmentation and a lack of focus and coherence in the integration system of government.
Complexity of Government: The structure of the South African public institutions is incredibly complex. This complexity covers the decision-making, regulatory, service delivery and oversight roles.
Government has a range of institutions that render services to citizens. The manner in which the institutions are organised and the manner in which the institutions interact with each other tend to be overly complex.
The structural arrangements of government do not necessarily accord to service delivery imperatives and the needs of communities. The organisational structure of government is driven by regulatory requirements, rather than geographical and logical considerations for locating and rendering services.
As a result of the complex structure of institutions and the different regulatory and policy frameworks that have been established, it has become difficult to transfer capacity between different functional and service areas that government prioritises.
Operations of Chapter 9 institution: The establishment and development of the Chapter 9 institutions of our Constitution (i.e. South Africa Human Rights Commission, Public Protector, etc.) is central to our efforts to build and strengthen our democracy. To this end, we need to ensure that the institutions function as effective and autonomous safeguards to our Constitution. The benefits derived from these institutions need to be balanced with the costs entailed in the administration of the affairs of the institution.
Given the escalating costs of administration of Chapter 9 institutions, it is essential that we look at ways of managing these costs through a careful assessment of their administration.
Achieving an employment profile that is representative of the population - specifically in terms of gender equity: We have not met the targeted Public Service employment ratios in terms of gender at managerial level and disability overall. We are also likely to fail in other diversity factors such as age, urban-rural divide, language and ethnic group dominance in certain institutions or parts of institutions. The question is: "How should policy be strengthened and further developed in order to achieve success?"
In our efforts to strive for achieving representivity, we need to remain mindful of the balancing act that we are involved in between the demands for creating a representative public service, while putting it on a "professional" footing (merit/ competence/ skill, etc) and within the context of society-wide employment equity goals and delivery imperatives. What more can be done to optimally navigate between these forces?
Ensure that the Organisational Culture within the Public Service changes in such a manner that it reflects the values of Batho Pele: Much of the effort in terms of public service transformation has been focussed on issues of systems and structures. It is becoming clear that without attending to the softer, and more important issues of organisational culture and values, a ceiling will be reached in terms of what can be achieved. We are achieving a level of compliance with legislation and procedure.
The key challenge is changing ethos and behaviour of the public service organisation - not only systems and structures. This change should be reflected both in the internal and external operations of the public service.
The Batho Pele principles of responsiveness, access, transparency, accountability, etc. require cultural change that has to happen in order to claim true transformation of the culture of the Public Service. These principles apply within the public sector, as well as in its external operations with the people. After five years of implementation, the vagueness with which progress is being reported to the people in terms of this significant policy can be interpreted as failure to successfully implement and inculcate it in the public sector work place.
Mobilising civil society and private sector capacity for the development agenda: Civil society organisations play a crucial role in articulating community concerns and feeding this into the decision-making process, as well as in delivering social and economic services. They also have an important contribution to make in monitoring and evaluating the outputs of government. Partnerships and ongoing engagements with such organisations serve to channel societal energies in a much more coherent manner.
An integrated response to Letsema, Vuk'uzenzela/ volunteerism/ calls for patriotism and activism: What can be done to ensure greater willingness and readiness in the public service to take advantage of such initiatives to channel assets and resources for development? What needs to change in the public service mentality to acknowledge/ recognise social capital as an equally important asset as financial resources, and to take the effective use of these resources equally seriously? Do public service managers have the skills, values and attitudes necessary to build the collaborative relationships required to sustain volunteerism? If not, what are we doing about correcting this situation?
Local government and transformation
As key area of delivery, local government is an instrument for realising sustainable development in the country, providing the means for communities to determine their own development priorities and through participation in local electoral, planning and decision-making processes to shape municipal decisions, and to keep municipalities responsive to their needs by enforcing accountability through ward committees and local elections.
ANC policy on sustainable development at the local level broadly speaks to several core objectives:
Community voice in local politics and municipal decision as a method of transferring ownership in development from government to government in community;
Local government structures that make decisions transparently, consultatively and are held to account for their decisions to the communities that elect them;
Delivering minimum basic services and providing social safety nets to the poor and aged;
Advancing the interests of youth, women and the disabled in political and economic life as primary beneficiaries of development programmes;
Accelerating the transformation of local economies through land reform, small business development, skills development and targeting development programs to the rural and urban poor to mainstream economic participation;
Defining the terms for private sector to participate in local economic development; and
Mobilising skills, partnership-coalitions and capital nationally and internationally for local economic development.
The system of local government is an instrument to achieve these objectives, and the fundamentals of this system are in place:
Challenges and issues for discussions
In ensuring delivery at this level of government we will face many problems, the following are some to be discussed and evaluated.
Political education and accountability of elected officials: Of the 8000 elected councillors, approximately 5002 are ANC members. Many are new cadres with limited organisational and political experience, and thus improperly equipped to discharge their functions as local political and economic leaders without capacity-building support. Whilst many councillors benefit from government capacity building programmes, these efforts will have to be complemented by ANC programmes targeted to elected and management cadres deployed to municipal level.
Municipal leadership is tasked with the responsibility to generate mass participation in local governance. ANC branches have been restructured to align with the new municipal boundaries. The task ahead is to ensure that councillors are accountable to branches without undermining their accountability as government officials to the communities that elected them. Care will have to be taken to implement a constructive understanding of accountability.
Ward committees as the instrument for councillor accountability to the community: Ward committees are vehicles designed to ensure municipal responsiveness to local demand and the accountability of councillors to the communities they represent. It is the political responsibility of the ANC to ensure that these structures are not captured by local elites for their own parochial purposes but take root as instruments for strengthening the democratisation of municipal governance and decision-making.
Building strategic municipal leadership: The development of local political leadership capable of translating local governance into sustainable community development is of prime importance if the system is to work. To this end, the ANC must roll out a sustained and intensive strategic skills development programme.
Continuous Assessment of the Roles and Functions of All Three Spheres: Local government is designed to enable local economic development, while the current structures of provinces was determined by the conditions that prevailed during negotiations i.e. the need to accommodate political diversity in the interests of peace without sacrificing national unity.
South Africa has nine provinces and a new system of local government. In building local government, the issue of the distribution of powers and functions between national, provincial and local spheres of government and within the local government sphere will continuously come to the fore and should be the subject of ongoing political focus.
Institutions of Traditional Leadership: The Constitution clearly requires that the institution of traditional leadership is accommodated within the system of democratic government. The current approach has resulted in the institution bargaining a position for itself whereby it is insulated from transformation. The ANC must go beyond saying that the institution should be transformed and take a national stance on what the transformation of the country means for the institution, in particular how we are to give content to the rights to equality of women in an institution that promotes patriarchy in succession and access to land right.
Parliament, provincial legislatures and transformation
With the end of liberation we were able to make changes. However, our first priority was to make sure that government continued to function. We succeeded in running the institutions, and we have also made significant progress in ensuring that staff is now more representative of the entire population, and that they work in a consultative and democratic way.
Thus we democratised and deracialised but we have not as yet managed to create new visions, and set objectives that match our policy needs. The task of transformation needs to be completed.
We have to provide cadres who share the objectives of the ANC and understand our policies. We need to provide them with the training and skills denied them under apartheid, and so give them the capacity to operate in a new, complex and technical environment. Only then will we be able to transform the institutions, with a new vision and purpose, appropriate objectives, and an organisational design and culture, so that they become the engines for changing our society eradicating the legacy of our past and bringing real improvements in the lives of our people.
Therefore, in looking at the institutions of governance, their structures, relationships and functioning, our starting point must be to examine the structures and institutions we have created and consider whether these have been set up properly, whether we are managing them correctly and if the policies we want to implement are correct.
Challenges and issues for discussion
Size and Function of the Legislatures
There are serious questions that we need to reconsider in relation to the size and functioning of legislatures and local government structures.
National Assembly: The National Assembly currently consists of 400 members: 200 are elected from a national list and the other 200 from a regional list with proportionality between the provinces. The original ANC proposal in the negotiations was for a single chamber Parliament of 300 Members. In discussion, and to accommodate those who wanted a Senate and National Assembly, we agreed to the present composition, and did not revert to a smaller chamber when we conceded on the Senate. We must consider whether we still need such a large structure given our current human resource constraints or should we opt for 350 Members instead?
National Council of Provinces: The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) provides for consideration by Provinces of national legislation. It consists of 90 members and is composed of a single delegation from each province. Each delegation is composed of 6 permanent Members elected by the Provincial Legislature and 4 non-permanent Members (the Premier or a member delegated by the Premier and 3 special delegates). Is this a good way of providing for the provincial view at national level or is a Chamber with 54 members at National level a viable alternative?
There is provision for local government representation in the NCOP with 10 representatives from SALGA participating as non-voting Members. Is this situation satisfactory, necessary and sufficient to represent local government?
Provincial Legislatures: The sizes of the legislatures vary between 30 and 84 Members. The Executive is chosen from the Members. Seven of the Provinces have 11 Executive members while the Eastern Cape has 10 and the Western Cape 12. In a 30-member legislature one can thus find up to 12 Members who are part of the executive or are office-bearers. Is this a viable legislature, what are other options besides increasing the numbers of MPL's? Why, given the financial and human resource shortage should we look at other options?
There have been suggestions for a major rethink on Provincial government and strengthening of local government. In many of the smaller countries and in some large ones, the Legislature meets at specific times and Members are able to combine other jobs and professions with their legislative functions. Given the current situation, powers and workload of most provincial legislatures, should we consider a system that provides for MPL's to function on a part-time basis, with a clearly defined legislative role?
Representative Governance
The legislatures must be representative, and the ANC has gone a long way in ensuring that its MPs are drawn from all sections in the population. But there are some areas, which we need to re-examine:
All the provincial legislatures do not live up to the agreed quota for women. Should we now insert enforcement measures? Most legislatures do not include sufficient rural people, youth and workers. Should ANC take special measures to ensure these groups are represented on our electoral lists? If so, how?
The legislatures and the law-making process need to be transformed to allow such members to function effectively, i.e. language, simplification of laws and demystification of legislative process, greater support for Members and legislatures.
The rationale for a more participatory form of democracy is part of creating vehicles for dialogue between governments and people and is grounded in the view that where people are not involved in the decisions that affect their lives, social policies and political interventions are likely to fail.
Secondly how do we ensure the participation of Alliance members and structures in policy making through participation in the entire process, i.e. branch, region, provincial and national, and through the activation of the sectoral forums.
The Alliance structures, as organs of civil society should engage with Parliamentary and Legislative Committees through making submissions and participating in hearings (as well as demonstrating at the gates and presenting memoranda!) ANC branches also need to do so.
How do we organise to enable members/branches to interact with institutions of governance and to mobilise political participation by branches and by the community?
Functioning of ANC governance structures
The 50th Conference considered the Role of the State & Governance and directed the NEC to "make provision for committees with representatives of the Executive, the Legislature, and the constitutional structures (NEC, PEC) to give overall political direction, to provide a forum for consultation and mediation for all those deployed to office in the institutions of governance... (and) further provide mechanisms for resolving matters that cannot be finalised locally".
In accordance with this resolution, political or governance committees were established in each province and at national level. These structures are not functioning properly, if at all. We need to consider why. It would seem that the absence of political direction has led to political and organisational problems in governance, and these problems in turn have led to non-functional Committees, resulting in:
The absence of functioning and appropriate structures has meant that the major challenge of transforming institutions and building and rooting appropriate institutions and democracy in the long and medium term is not being adequately considered. The focus instead is on solving immediate problems in an ad hoc way.
The challenge is to review why structures don't function and consider how we ensure that they do. Do we need a new structure to give political direction to those in institutions of governance. If so, what changes should we make?
How do we organize ANC structures/branches, RECs, PECs to monitor and hold to account leaders in governance at every level?
Conclusion
At this stage, we do not need new policies, or new institutions. In governance, most of our problems are due to failures of implementation, arising from a poor human resource capacity, as well as a failure to monitor and provide political direction to those given responsibilities in governance.
The apartheid years saw infrastructure development limited to geographical areas of the old South Africa, neglect in townships and informal settlements, and a concentration on the needs of industry and white areas to the almost total exclusion of others. During the emergency period of the State Security Council in the 1980s, some infrastructure projects were initiated as political grease in an attempt to overcome political resistance and struggle. These projects were therefore conducted piecemeal, were not integrated with an overall development strategy, nor were they seen as legitimate by the communities themselves.
Since 1994, the ANC has led the way to provide an integrated, holistic approach to major social and economic questions, including the provision of infrastructure. One of our major tasks when we took government was to conduct a massive survey of infrastructure needs in the face of the obvious backlogs that we faced. That survey covered social and physical infrastructure, its state of maintenance, and an assessment of future needs and addressed questions of implementation agencies and the role of different spheres of action. We found that there was an infrastructure backlog of about R170 billion in our country, across all areas of activity!
Infrastructure is critical to development in at least three ways:
Even today we have no accurate measure of infrastructure expenditure, but we can estimate that since 1994 the public sector has accounted for about 30% of gross fixed capital formation in South Africa. Of this, about 45% came from extra-budgetary institutions and non-financial public enterprises. The remainder, or about 15% of total fixed capital formation, came from allocations made by government through the Budget.
From 1994 government has concentrated on infrastructure development in a range of areas that has picked up speed as programme management and other elements have improved and developed. Thus, since 1194, 2,8 million phones have been installed, most of which are in previously neglected areas; over 1,4 million housing subsidies have been allocated and over 1,3 million houses built; over 3 million homes have been electrified; since 1997/8 we have spent over R18 billion on roads, with 78% of this spent on provincial and 22% on national roads; rural roads have been built consistently through the CBPWP; since 1997/8 we have also spent over R1, 6 billion on rail infrastructure. The Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme has allocated about R3, 4 billion for sanitation, water, roads, and storm water projects. The infrastructure budgets for education and health facilities have increased dramatically since 1998/99 as well.
However, although we have marked up some major successes, we have also recognized a number of problems in our efforts so far. One issue that has emerged is the question of the fiscal responsibility for the ongoing maintenance of new infrastructure, and the measures that need to be in place to ensure that work skills developed during construction are carried over into the maintenance period. Another issue has become the manner in which particular facilities, such as schools and clinics in rural areas are linked to broader development initiatives such as electrification, water and sanitation, rural access roads, telecommunications and so on.
A critical element of the provision of infrastructure is to ensure that these projects and programmes translate into social transformation. It appears that we have proceeded quite far in our efforts to address the backlogs, but it is clear that more still needs to be done. Since 1998/9 we have begun to reap the benefits of earlier economic decisions and a greater resource base for further infrastructure expenditure is now possible. We believe that we are now in a position to accelerate the provision of infrastructure across South Africa in an integrated and development manner. Our focus should be on improving the implementation of our programmes, and improving the performance of all entities and facilities that are thus provided.
There are two economies in South Africa. The developed economy suffers from a lack of cost competitiveness in relation to the global economy whilst the underdeveloped part of the economy, which represents the experiences of a high proportion of South Africans, is an area where economic potential is not being enabled and harnessed due to backlogs and under-investment in social and productive capital.
The challenges facing us have grown from the outlines of the Freedom Charter through the RDP. These cover issues of democracy and governance, meeting social needs, securing economic transformation, safety and security. Infrastructure as broadly defined seeks to ensure that we meet basic needs through social infrastructure and economic transformation through economic infrastructure. The programme of national democratic transformation challenges us to focus infrastructure development towards achieving the integration of our communities through spatial development and deracialising our country. This includes bridging the technology; production and infrastructure divide between rural and urban areas. It also requires greater coordination and planning for infrastructure to support the growth and development strategy implemented through all spheres of government.
The global balance of forces has changed remarkably over the last decade and the recent emergence of the AU and NEPAD place further opportunities and challenges before us. South Africa has a role to play in the overall development of our continent, and we believe that the strength of our infrastructure commitment can go a long way to assisting in this development.
Overview of ANC Policy on Infrastructure
The adoption of the RDP in 1994 laid the foundation for all our policies in the period of government. Infrastructure policy was included either implicitly or explicitly in a range of areas that covered electricity provision, housing, health, water and sanitation, telecommunication and information networks, transport, municipal services and public works programmes. We identified South Africa as a development state where we envisaged an active and participatory role for the state, state institutions and enterprises as well as initiating public-private partnerships as a means to mobilizing private sector support and resources in a targeted and development role.
A number of resolutions adopted at the Mafikeng Conference identified specific areas of activity in some detail, including rural development, energy, water, housing and so on. In essence Mafikeng highlighted the need to expand our programmes and to develop better methods of coordination and planning to secure greater community involvement and better use of limited resources. In addition we agreed to establish more effective ANC structures to coordinate our own resources and to secure improved involvement of ANC structures and branches. A central element of all the resolutions in dealing with infrastructure emphasized job creation and skills development.
The ANC's NGC in Port Elizabeth addressed itself to identifying further steps to take for the infrastructure sector. These included:
We have already indicated some of the successes and some of the problems that have emerged as we embarked on delivering better infrastructure. Mafikeng also envisaged an expanded and more wide ranging application of the principles of the National Public Works Programme. We urged that all our programmes should be "visible" in their impact on eradicating poverty in South Africa. It appears that the basic are sound, but that the mechanisms of delivery and the visible impact on poverty are not as clear cut as they could be. Thus we need to consider seriously what measures can be identified that are practical, workable and within our ability, and which are financially sound. We could consider more strategic interventions that aim at better coordination and the integration of programmes that exist at present, creating linkages and improving on operational efficiencies between sectors. As unemployment remains the critical challenge facing us at present, we should consider how best to integrate measures to combat unemployment in all areas of our work, including the development of a major Public Works Programme as an employment creation strategy.
South Africa aims by 2014 to have a restructured and adaptive economy characterised by growth, employment and equity, built on the full potential of all persons, communities and geographic areas. This would follow the successful implementation of the microeconomic reform strategy and complemented by continued macroeconomic stability and a process of sustainable social development. The requirements to realise this vision include the following:
In order to advance this vision for the transformation of the South African economy, government should continue to focus on microeconomic reform strategies as the majority of the remedies to the factors limiting accelerated growth lie within the micro economy. The challenge is to focus on ensuring that infrastructure supports economic growth sectors, input sectors in the economy and provides for basic needs in marginalized areas. Infrastructure should be focused in growth areas, development corridors, and Spatial Development Initiatives, Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme and Urban Renewal Programme Nodal areas. A labour intensive roll out programme in identified priority areas of the country for the maintenance of infrastructure where lack of further maintenance would mean the loss of that asset.
The key components of a vision for Infrastructure in our country could be:
We need to consider the effectiveness of our multi-layered implementation structures in all spheres of government. Both at national and provincial level, a number of departments have responsibilities that impact on the delivery of social and economic infrastructure . The following factors complicate effective co-ordination of infrastructure:
There also appears to be a problem of the dysfunctional funding for infrastructure at different levels of government. Thus, the different sectoral programs are not matched at national level in terms of budgets nor are they integrated at the programme level. Provincial problems include structural imbalances that exist in the availability of funds for the different line functionary sectors and give rise to highly fragmented responses towards development projects . At local level, the financial and capacity difficulties of many local authorities create severe impediments to the delivery of a wide range of services .
Another noticeable problem is that, despite valuable efforts by the Department of Provincial and Local Government (DPLG), the private sector has yet to enter the infrastructure "market". Very few municipalities have fully explored the responsibilities of joint ventures or outsourcing of service. This is beginning to improve and a number of local governments are launching initiatives in this regard. Nevertheless, the policies developed by DPLG in relation to partnerships assists in the investment opportunities.
The impact of these problems has meant that in spatial terms there has been a mismatch of infrastructure provision and needs, that some areas have received very little investment and others high investments creating distorted spatial investment patterns.
Implementation Challenges
Current implementation of infrastructure development programmes is dogged with a myriad of problems such as weak financial and institutional capacity of Local Government as implementers of basic infrastructure services, the reluctance by the private sector to provide finance in areas of greatest need for basic infrastructure investment due to perceived risk and difficult and volatile financial markets, accompanied by high interest rates.
This is further compounded by low level of foreign investment in Africa and South Africa against a background of increasing private capital flows and skills shortages in the areas of project planning and management, financial management, information technology and corporate governance and the major threat of HIV/AIDS to existing and future human capital in these areas.
This has occurred in the context of sound economic, monetary and fiscal policies by government, increased budgetary allocation to provinces and local authorities and increase policy co-ordination at national level and sound regulatory frameworks such as Public Finance Management Act, political stability, decreasing government borrowing and debt level and transformation of local government and promoting of public private partnerships.
Institutional arrangements for implementation require rationalization and more efficient management to achieve our objectives. The role of SOEs remains a critical challenge particular in relation to inadequate mandating mechanisms such as shareholder compacts which would guide their priorities and programmes. However, success in this area must be noted particularly with Eskom, Transnet, Denel and the Independent Development Trust. Specific attention still is needed to ensure maximum utilization of resources available to us as a country, for example deployment of SAND technical capacity to infrastructure development programmes, and minimization of duplication of roles such as Eskom and Local Governments in the provision of electricity.
Because of a lack of uniformity across functional areas, the coordination of strategic planning and the execution of programmes are difficult to achieve. There are few effective mechanisms in place to ensure consistency in the determination and application of national strategic priorities. Because different criteria are used to determine the allocation of funds to provinces, the amounts allocated to related functions do not ensure consistency of outcomes. Moreover, the lack of integrated development plans leads to mismatches of funds at provincial level.
National and provincial development priorities are not necessarily determined jointly, with the result that each line department may channel funds in different directions. Local government strategic planning and prioritization processes may either prove weak due to capacity constraints or may be ignored by other tiers of government and the market. Deficiencies in the current system of infrastructure provision pose the inherent danger of both the under-provision of services or the "duplication" of services and may result in wastage of the country's limited resources.
Current government initiatives that promote greater infrastructure provisioning integration include the following:
Policy and programme: The Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework - Department of Provincial and Local Government; Municipal Service Options: A guideline for Local Authorities - Department of Provincial and Local Government; Guidelines for the Provision of Engineering Services Amenities in Residential Townships - The Red Book - developed by the Department of Housing in conjunction with the CSIR, provides guidelines for planning and infrastructure provision in human settlements; White Paper on a National Water Policy for South Africa .The White Paper on Local Government, 1998. The Department of Housing has developed policy for housing development through the "Minimum Norms and Standards in respect of Permanent Residential Structures" which also forms part of the National Housing Code.
Programmes and strategies: Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme (CMIP) - DPLG. Community Water and Sanitation Programme - DWAF.
Other: A number of National (and Provincial) Departments are directly or indirectly involved in the formulation of policy and strategy and the delivery of infrastructure. These all have an impact on the creation of viable economic and social development and it is important that policies, strategies and delivery programmes are taken into account.
Economic and Social Infrastructure
The provision of economic infrastructure is aimed at lowering the costs of doing business in South Africa. High levels of infrastructure investment particularly in transport, roads, telecommunication, energy, rail, create a competitive edge for the South African economy, and make it more efficient, lowering the cost of production and therefore improving the environment for investment and job creation.
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has revolutionized approaches to cross-border commercial transactions and is a greater part of the global agenda. This includes services that will create a flourishing information society such as the Internet, tele-medicine, tele-agriculture, e-commerce, e-business, e-government, and other convenient measures that will improve the quality of life of our people while contributing to economic growth.
The growth of e-commerce has redefined traditional business methods. In 1991, there were less than 5 million Internet users. Currently there are over 300 million users. With this growth, there are numerous opportunities as e-commerce creates a fiction less economy in which transaction costs and barriers to entry are minimal. The growth of e-commerce presents an opportunity for us to compete directly in high value-added industries.
However the lack of suitably skilled ICT workforce in South Africa is indicative of the education system not meeting the rigorous demands of today's knowledge-based economy. The demand for technically trained talent in the workplace far exceeds the current supply. If South Africa wants to establish a world-class high technology industry, we must address the establishment of a first rate education system to gain global competitive edge.
The provision of social infrastructure is key in meeting Government's objective of redistributing wealth to the poor. The delivery of social infrastructure must seek to break the spatial patterns of apartheid planning and must be targeted at providing basic services to all South Africans and must endeavor to make South African Cities more efficient.
Infrastructure Investment: Current policy
The ANC's broad economic and development policy must underpin the decisions related to infrastructure investment. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) stated that the first priority is to begin to meet the basic needs of people i.e. jobs, land, housing, water, electricity, telecommunication, transport etc. Similarly in the Growth and Redistribution Strategy (GEAR), it was anticipated that infrastructure investment would be one of the primary considerations in driving economic development. In addition, there are specific policies covering Municipal Infrastructure investment and sectoral basic needs; the construction industry as a focus for poverty alleviation, job creation and entrepreneurial development; and Municipal Service Partnerships (MSPs).
Goals
It follows, therefore, that the movement must adopt infrastructure investment programmes that strive to achieve the following key development goals:
From the above it is clear that a broad, integrated policy framework on co-ordination of infrastructure development in South Africa does not exist. The absence of such a framework undermines effective cross-functional co-ordination between and within various spheres of government. In order to promote an integrated and accelerated approach to social and economic development, in both urban and rural areas, Government has made available R6 billion over the next three years (over and above the infrastructure budgets in the various line departments). Spending will focus on increased inter sectoral integration as well as stimulating economic growth in areas with high economic development potential. A phased development approach makes the following assumptions:
The conditions under which municipal, social and economic services are to be provided will depend on the nature of the project. In general, consideration must be given on whether projects are greenfields, upgrading or combination projects.
The ANC must consider the type of integration forum that should be established to oversee the process of infrastructure provision by government. A number of factors need to be considered by such a forum. These would include:
Economic Considerations: In order to meet the economic development objectives, projects should: Promote the efficient economic interchange between urban and rural communities based on community centered activities; Unlock under-utilized public resources and infrastructure; Be implementable in the short term; and Be highly visible (geographically and politically).
Planning and social considerations: In order to promote integrated development, projects should: Take cognisance of, and enhance longer term development goals for the area in which it takes place and be in harmony with any applicable spatial development framework for the area and what government-identified priorities within such frameworks; Promote the integration of previously segregated infrastructure delivery; Promote a balanced access to infrastructure, community facilities, resources and employment opportunities; Integrate land use functions in a manner that builds communities within the context of their development needs and promotes a transition towards urbanisation in the long term; Contribute to community and public sector skills and capacity development. Promote integration and democratisation of local authority structures; and contribute in actual terms to the eradication of existing services backlogs.
Point of departure for integration: In addition, preference should be given to projects that: Promote integrated economical, social and environmentally sustainable development. Demonstrate maximum local and provincial government and private sector financial gearing; Demonstrate improved or institutionalised line functionary integration at project implementation. Demonstrate high levels of job creation and focused skills transfer, preferably linked to existing programmes for skills transfer and capacity building; maximum use of local contractors and/or service providers based on affirmative procurement practices, maximum use of labour intensive construction methods, preferably linked to a formal public works programme; Demonstrate a holistic approach to community building and sustainability and the impact of the project on the quality of life.
In the absence of integrated planning and budgeting via IDPs, special funding arrangements must be made. In key funding for strategic projects should be top-sliced and provided as a single budget. This obviates the need for complex and time-consuming funding negotiations between multiple parties. This funding should be made available according to a projected project cash flow but must provide flexibility in complex project.
Implementation agencies should be encouraged to gear other sources of funding through innovative financing models developed at project level. The optimised funding mix could result in Municipal Service Partnerships (MSPs), which involve a contractual arrangement with a service provider other than the municipality itself5.
Large and complex infrastructure projects may best be implemented in a turnkey manner. This approach substantially reduces the overall project management burden on the state, but requires considerable intergovernmental co-operation. Provincial governments should therefore become the key co-ordination authorities, facilitating project planning, rollout and capacitating as far as possible at the local level. Where appropriate, systems should be optimized to avoid multi-level procurement and multiple agency involvement within a single location.
A key element of the integration of infrastructure delivery processes involves the alignment of principles and priorities underpinning the various programmes that contribute to the development of integrated economic developments. The concept of functional arrangements along programmatic developmental lines requires fundamental structural change in the delivery of infrastructural services affecting all three spheres of government. The process of restructuring would need to harness the momentum of existing initiatives, such as the proposed system of spatial planning and development (as set out in the Green Paper on Development and Planning) and the Municipal Systems Act, 2000. A carefully planned multi-year programme would be needed to obviate possible disruption. Further research will also be required in order to assess the financial, personnel and other implications of this proposal. While there could be a need for a local government capacity audit, linkages should also be sought with the DPLG's national capacity building programme. A concerted, systematic transition to the programmatic integration of the delivery of infrastructure is proposed which takes account of the following dimensions.
To ensure consistency of outcomes at the national sphere of government, integrated infrastructural development should occur within the framework of a single uniform system of integrated planning that serves the needs of the country as a whole. The spatial planning and development system and the adoption of legislation advocated in the Green Paper on Planning and Development would appear to answer this need to a significant degree and the adoption of legislation, as recommended in the Green Paper, will form the foundation for future spatial planning. Cognizance should also be taken of numerous crosscutting-planning processes occurring at provincial level . While horizontal co-ordination across sectors is important, it is equally important to consider vertical co-ordination across spheres of government.
Finally, but perhaps most importantly, local level Integrated Development Plans which constitute the principal strategic planning instrument to guide and inform planning and development at local level should be afforded priority consideration. The IDP process is key to promoting integrated planning, especially between local and provincial authorities.
Local authorities are primarily responsible for the provision of, especially, but not only, municipal services. They are also responsible for operating and maintaining such services. The ability of municipalities to sustain the capital and operating costs of providing services is accordingly of concern. In some areas it would appear that municipalities set service standards for infrastructure provision at high levels, as higher levels of services (e.g. roads or storm water drainage) usually imply lower maintenance costs that are more affordable to municipalities7. High levels of services, however, lead to high operating costs (such as water-borne sewerage) that may not be affordable to many communities.
A draft report to DPLG, the Revised Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework estimates the bulk and internal capital cost of delivering municipal services to a basic level per household in urban areas is R10 104, and in rural areas R7 823. The current average monthly operating costs for a basic level of service in urban areas is R113 per household, and R57 per household in rural areas. The cost of providing the five municipal services averages 64% of municipal expenditure in urban areas, but is markedly higher in rural areas.
In order to ensure national and economic sustainability, uniformity and equity in the provision of municipal, social and economic services, an integrated national policy on norms and standards for housing and related capital services to be funded by the National Treasury has been identified. Responsibility for the development and monitoring of such a policy should be allocated to a single national department through the establishment of a consultative forum.
Programmatic review
Key government programmes for the delivery of municipal, social, economic and institutional infrastructure should be reviewed to ensure consistency. Through this process, the various funding instruments, including the Housing Subsidy Programme, the Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Investment Programme (CMIP), the Water and Sanitation Programme, the Land Reform Programme and the Provincial roads, school-building, hospital, clinic and other social facility building programmes should be consolidated and rationalized to facilitate an integrated application at project in a simple and effective manner. This process should ensure a programmatic review of all government programmes and assess their impact and the extent to which transformational objectives have been achieved and to foster integrated infrastructure development.
Funding
Funding co-ordination will be greatly assisted through the IDP process. The problem of private sector investment remains complex. Despite the valuable efforts by the Department of Provincial and Local Government, the private sector has not yet entered the infrastructure "market". Very few municipalities have dully explored the responsibilities of joint ventures or privatization of service. Similarly the is a need to review the single year budgeting to medium term budgeting already operational at National and Provincial level and to focus funding for infrastructure in rural areas. These aspects need to be addressed in order to enhance the funding which is available for infrastructure investment in an environment of relative scarcity.
Investment attraction strategies need to be developed to ensure that Government does not continue to be the sole provider of economic infrastructure that benefit mostly business and contributes to economic growth. We must specifically define interventions for raising private sector funds in line with our NGC programmatic tasks.
Institutional capacity
Whilst promoting infrastructure investment, care must be taken to enhance institutional capacity to manage, maintain, operate and utilize infrastructure to achieve broad development goals. The role of intermediary organisations (for and non-profit) is very important. Within this context, a greater role must be developed for non-government agencies in order to enhance service delivery. Infrastructure development must also be used to promote economic empowerment of previously disadvantaged groups and to build small and medium enterprises.
Framework for a resolution
As we advance towards integrated infrastructure delivery, we need to re evaluate our policy framework through policy analysis, and work toward establishing a policy and planning framework for integrated infrastructure.
Thorough assessment of impact of infrastructure programme needs to be done against the social transformational objectives as discussed in our Strategy and Tactics document including Black Economic Empowerment, Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises, Women's' Co-operatives and Youth Brigades.
Recognising that the key challenges of infrastructure development remain the co-ordination of investment between public sector, public entities and private sector investment. We need to establish an infrastructure Investment Framework in order to more effectively co-ordinate investment to ensure targeted and planned infrastructure programme implementation.
In order to enhance visibility of our delivery programme we need to establish highly visible, targeted delivery programmes in the short term, across all spheres of Government to o be aimed at completion by the beginning of 2004.
In recognizing the challenge that we face, the following must be considered as specific issues for successful implementation of an infrastructure programme:
Our vision derives from the Freedom Charter, which proclaimed in 1956 that There Shall be Peace and Friendship. This was against the backdrop of an apartheid state and security system, which fundamentally undermined the human dignity and the rights of our people and simultaneously promoted war in the region and continent.
Building on this vision of the Freedom Charter, the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) thus clearly elaborated our policy approach:
Implementation - government policies and programmes
The achievement of a better life for all requires the creation of a humane society where peace, security and dignity replace crime, fraud, corruption, human rights abuse and lawlessness. Recognizing the impact that high levels of crime have on the quality of life in communities, the fight against crime has been highlighted as a key programme of government.
The Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Cluster (JCPS) is implementing a multi-disciplinary strategy to achieve peace and stability, which are aimed at:
The Cluster strategy has been divided into five programmes: development and transformation of cluster departments, crime prevention and combating, security, prosecution and the judiciary and detention.
Preventing and combating crime: In recognition of the unacceptable high levels of crime, Cabinet approved a National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS) in 1996, directed by Ministers from the JCPS cluster. The original NCPS motivated for a new paradigm, including:
The NCPS thus identified as the main pillars the re-engineering of the Criminal Justice System (CJS), dealing with trans-national crime, changing public values and crime prevention through environmental design. Amongst the priorities identified for this first phase of the NCPS included crimes involving firearms, organized crime, gender violence and crimes against children, violence associated with inter-group conflict, vehicle theft and hijacking and dealing with corruption within the CJS. This approach was encapsulated largely in the 1998 White Paper on Safety and Security, which also called for a Review of the NCPS.
The second term of government in 1999 identified the need to speed up change in a number of areas, including the fight against crime. The changes to achieve this goal were largely based on the NCPS Review, completed in July 1999. Based on this review, a framework and set of priority crime categories were adopted. This included:
Priority crime categories included firearms, organized crime, white-collar crime, vehicle crime, corruption in the criminal justice system, inter-personal violence, domestic violence and rape.
Based on this framework, the Cluster set strategic goals for the period 2000-2004. Amongst the goals was the stabilizing of crime levels in 145 police station areas, which accounted for 50% of serious crimes. By mid-2002, crime levels in more than a 100 of these police stations have stabilized and measurers introduced to deal with the remaining areas. In addition, the stabilized areas will be subjected to a programme of normalization, including assistance with developing social crime prevention plans, improving capacity in these areas to normalize service delivery, the establishment of Sector Police Units in 50 of these areas; and incorporating the functions of the Metropolitan Police services into the sector policing concept. The Cluster will also extend these prioritized areas to a further 195 station areas.
There are also specific programmes (including the use of legislation) to deal with the priority crime categories, such as organized crime, drug peddling, gangs and firearms and we are beginning to make real progress in each of these areas.
On crimes against women and children, the police identified 128 station areas that contribute at least 50% of the national rape statistics in the country, where special projects will be implemented to give effect to the interdepartmental anti-rape strategy. These projects, jointly implemented by the National Prosecuting Authority, the Department of Health and Social Development and the SAPS, will focus on increasing the number of Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offenses Units of the SAPS, victim support programmes; and prevention and public education programmes.
The SAPS Act 68 of 1995 provides for the establishment of Community Policing Forums and empowers the Minister to make regulations regarding the operations of CPFs; the first of which were promulgated in 2001. A review of the operations of CPFs is being done, with recommendations on amendments to the regulations. A major focus of the review is to consider the feasibility of community safety forums as vehicles for the local coordination of crime prevention initiatives and rationalization of community interaction with the criminal justice system.
Prosecution and the Judiciary: We have rationalized the system of justice with the unification of the 11 apartheid based systems of justice; the introduction of the Constitutional Court, various Labour courts, the Land Claims Court and other specialized judicial institutions. The Lower courts also benefit from a strategy to separate judicial and administrative functions and they are now employing court managers for the latter as a roll-out of a piloted initiative.
The establishment of the National Prosecuting Authority has transformed the management and functioning of the prosecuting service. Progress is being made in all areas, including increasing average court hours to at least four hours, increasing conviction rates, and increasing the numbers of seizures and forfeitures of the Assets Forfeiture Unit. The Directorate of Special Operations has also continued to make an impact in combating organized crime, notably urban terror and gangsterism in W Cape; vehicle hijacking in Gauteng and taxi violence and racketeering in the E Cape.
An important challenge of the National Crime Prevention Strategy is to reduce case backlogs and the population of awaiting trial prisoners. Through an Integrated Justice System measurers are being put in place to improve coordination, programmes to modernize service delivery, and ways to further raise the efficiency of the system through improved case flow management, changes to the Legal Profession, improving sentencing procedures, the demarcation of magistrate courts in line with the new local government demarcations, the appropriate use of plea bargaining, review of appointment procedures for magistrates and the increase used of alternative dispute resolution processes for civil matters.
A pilot project at the Durban Magistrates Court to develop an integrated case management system has produced very good results, in the context of reducing the average case cycle. The project will be rolled-out in Johannesburg and other areas. The introduction of Saturday and additional courts have also helped to address the case backlogs and the case cycles.
The programme to support and empower victims of crime is being implemented, addressing the unique needs of groups of victims and witnesses, such as women, children and the disabled, through heightened awareness of their needs, adjusting physical infrastructure, developing procedures to protect their rights and the introduction of the National Community Safety Centre Programme. The protection of children is receiving priority attention, and the Child Justice Bill will be introduced in Parliament during 2002. The Maintenance system is also receiving urgent attention.
Various independent bodies have been established to uphold and promote the values of the Constitution, including the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the South African Human Rights Commission, the Public Protector and the Commission on Gender Equality.
Correctional services: Transformation in this area has been uneven, with major policy developments taking place to consolidate the paradigm shift in line with Section 35 of the Constitution. On the other hand, the lack of stability in senior management resulting in major managerial weaknesses, combined with extensive corruption in the system and serious overcrowding has undermined rehabilitation efforts and the human rights of prisoners.
Steps at policy levels have included the demilitarization of the department, adoption of representativity and equity policy, shift to a balance between secure, humane custody and rehabilitation, the adoption of unit management of prisons and the adoption of a code of conduct. However, the process of change management and implementation of new policy have been weak, resulting in lack of buy-in and repeated revisiting of policy. Whilst work was done to align the institutions to Correctional Services Act 111 of 1998, there was insufficient popularization and education on the content of the Act.
The extent of corruption at all levels of the system has been a major blockage to transformation. The processes of the Jali Commission, the anti corruption programme of the Minister and the Commissioner and steps to build sustainable capacity within the department will make an impact, but will need a sustainable programme over a longer period to impact on corruption.
Amongst the major challenges facing the department are:
Dealing with overcrowding: Measurers to deal with this problem include reducing the numbers of awaiting trial and sentence prisoners by the JCPS cluster; the establishment of a task team to make recommendation on an anti-overcrowding strategy and the programme to renovate, maintain old prisons and to build new prisons.
Implementation of rehabilitation programmes: A concept document is being developed and there was an increase in the budget for rehabilitation. The department also provides services to at least 17 other government departments, as well as it's own consumption and Adult Basic Education with the help of external stakeholders. The department is also planning to build 14 skills training centers, with three already opened at St. Albans, Upington and Kimberley.
More appropriate recruitment and training of staff: The department has set aside R52 million to deal with this task, which will include changing the organisational culture, image and training.
Dealing with corruption and crime in the system: The Jali Commission
is investigation corruption, mal-administration, violence in nine management
areas - it has completed the interim report on the Durban Westville
Prison and is in progress at Grootvlei prison. This will form the basis
of a comprehensive response by government to clean out the system.
Defence: The concept of security embodied in our Constitution goes beyond mere territorial defense - it embraces security of persons, environment, and an end to human conflict in general.
Using this as a starting point, the policy framework of the South African National Defense Force and defence evolved through the comprehensive Defense Review conducted during the first years of our democracy, which then formed the basis of the White Paper on Defense and subsequent legislation that governs this important area of our national security.
The major emphasis over the last eight years have been to build an integrated defence force, a new military culture and policies appropriate to a democratic society. In particular, the challenge has been to maintain a core force that is able to meet its commitments to defend our territorial integrity, including our borders and coastline; to participate in peace support operations, to support the SAPS and to support social delivery. With the overall emphasis of government budget on social spending, the Defense budget has declined for the past few years.
One of the major challenges of our democracy was the integration of seven different military formations into a single SANDF, which is representative of the demographics of the country, uniformly trained, with a code of conduct and uniformity of purpose. Special training programmes were put in place to fast track black officers, with special training programmes for former Non-statutory forces members. The Employment Equity and Affirmative action programmes are on track in the force.
Another major challenge is to build a defence force appropriate to the needs of the country. The SANDF has thus started a process of rationalization of the armed forces from 104 000 members in 1994 to the present 76 512. Mechanisms to achieve this included the rationalization of non-statutory forces (NSF) pensions, natural attrition and employee-initiated retrenchments.
The development of new training methods took time to develop, and representativity on the courses has been developed. However, there is still a shortage of instructors from former NSF and TBVC forces, and instructors at the National War College are being augmented with staff from Ghana, Kenya and the UK. English as a language of command and control and as a medium of instruction is being implemented in the force, with programmes to develop members' proficiency in English. The low numbers of women in the command and control structures remain a challenge.
The integration and transformation of the ethos of the defense force presented its own challenges. For example, a Ministerial Inquiry had to be set up after the shooting incidents at Tempe and Phalaborwa, which identified specific areas for attention. Mechanisms to improve internal disciplined are also being reviewed. The development of new military doctrine based on the White paper has not taken root, though there is work in progress to speed this up, with external help. Work is also in progress on strengthening the Defense Secretariat.
The procurement programme to replace obsolete equipment is on track, with the acquisition of air force and naval force equipment and will continue into the next decade. However, we need to learn lessons from the perceptions of corruption in the package and the subsequent work done by the Joint Investigations Task team.
A country-wide recruitment campaign for the Reserve Forces has not been successful, mainly due to budget constraints; the representativity of the RF therefore remains an issue. New units based on townships and rural communities have also not occurred and members have joined existing units. Supervision of the reserve forces remains an important issue, especially in the context of complaints of civilian abuse by some of the Commandos.
A new programme, the Youth Foundation Training, was started in 2000, to assist black matriculants to improve their mathematics and science symbols, in order to prepare them for training in especially the navy and air force. The force has also done visits to schools as part of its recruitment and awareness campaigns.
The erection of war memorials and heroes acres has not happened, although progress is being made with the national memorial for fallen heroes at Freedom Park. The Service corps continue to receive government and donor funding, though efforts to make it independent has not materialized, in the context of a negative report from the Auditor General on corps finances. The Veterans Bill was passed, and the Military Veteran's Board and a directorate in the department were established.
As we are beginning to put in place the building blocks for the African renaissance, our role in security on the continent is becoming more important. For example, we have to date deployed 930 members of the SANDF in the United Nations, OAU and other missions, covering a wide range of tasks, and members are deployed in Uganda, the DRC, Ethiopia/Eritrea, Algeria, the Comores and Burundi. The SANDF also participated in SADC initiatives in Lesotho. Support to the SANDF has included securing the launch of the African Union and other international events that we hosted such as the World Conference Against Racism, the World Summit on Sustainable Development and so forth. The Defense force also played an important role in rescue operations during the floods in Mozambique. All SADC member states also have the opportunity to annually train members of their armed forces at our establishments.
A number of pieces of legislation are in the pipeline, including the Defence Bill, aimed at regulating the defense function; the National Conventional Arms Convention Bill; the Defense Acquisition Bill; Military Discipline Bill and the Prohibition of Anti Personnel Mines Bill.
Challenges over the next period include rationalization and further downsizing of the Defense force; finalizing the NSF pensions dispensation; human resource development to ensure the right type and profile in the defense force; ensure a comprehensive health assessment to ensure a healthy, fit fighting force and disposing of unutilized excess stock.
Intelligence: The impact of transformation in the intelligence services is evident in the change of management at all critical levels. Much work however still needs to be done. For a better defence of the country and our people we need; for example, to ensure that we have the right people in the right positions in terms of capacity, including the full participation of women in all management levels. To address these issues a Review Commission on Promotions was appointed in June. It will also carry out an audit of the personnel within the intelligence services.
As part of the transformation of the services, there has been a policy shift in the overall understanding of security. Security has now been developed to draw in and emphasize economic intelligence, food and environmental security.
A number of key areas of concern were identified by the NGC. The intelligence community has concentrated on two of these. As part of our commitment to improve the services and working conditions of the security services, a new policy on conditions of service has been developed. This seeks to ensure that the services work in an environment in which each can contribute to the best of their ability and in which they can thrive and grow.
The NGC also identified the need for improved re-orientation training programmes. In line with this, the intelligence community has established a new institution, the South African National Academy of Intelligence (SANAI), which seeks to produce a new cadre of intelligence that is professional, skilled and committed to the provision of comprehensive security to our people and the country.
An important part of the work of intelligence is the defence and preservation of our democracy. The services conduct investigations and advise on policies and annually produce national intelligence estimates, which highlight threats to our democracy, developments internationally, economic trends and shifts including opportunities. It also produces specific products on a regular basis.
In view of the increasing importance that our country has assumed in continental and world affairs; mainly, in relation to peace efforts, the pursuit of sustainable development and the transformation of the global system, a greater burden on the intelligence services has been placed to provide guarantees for peace and stability.
Although from an intelligence perspective there is at present no direct threat to the stability and the peace of the country, the services remain concerned about extremism, urban terrorism, taxi violence, political violence, gangsterism and espionage activities of foreign intelligence agencies. These have necessitated some greater co-ordination and collaboration with other security agencies; namely, the SAPS and the SANDF. The events of September 11 in the US have shown that lack of co-ordination of intelligence agencies could lead to disastrous intelligence failures. On our part we have paid a great deal of attention to this requirement.
The added responsibilities of the services in the new dispensation have necessitated a focus on its resourcing. This is not to argue that there is competition with the imperative of social delivery. Rather, as stated above, the betterment of the lives of our people and the continuation of the NDR demands that equal consideration is given on how the defense and the security instruments of the state are being resourced. This is the critical challenge that the intelligence community is faced with.
There are a number of bills in Parliament that seek to give greater effect to the work being done by the services, such as the Monitoring and Interception Bill.
A new structure, the Presidential Support Unit (PSU), was established to advise the Presidency on matters relating to conflict and peace in the region and the continent.
An equally important challenge therefore concerns the issue of the extent to which our people understand the role of intelligence. It has become necessary to embark on a campaign of education about the role of intelligence in a democracy. Intelligence services that are required to drive all investigations in the fight against have embarked on a process of making themselves accessible to the public. A challenge that also exists therefore is how the ANC assists with the mobilization of communities to co-operate with the services to provide them with the information that is required in investigations concerning crime and the protection of the state and the people.
Challenges - issues for discussions by ANC structures
the strategic objective of the NDR is to build a non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa. The motive forces are the national and class forces that stand to gain from the success of NDR: black people in general, Africans in particular and in class terms include: the unemployed and landless rural masses, unskilled and semi-skilled workers, workers, professi onals, middle class and black business. Furthermore, our transformation also addresses the triple oppression of women and the democracy that we pursue, leans towards the poor. Within the motive forces, there are various strata that have specific sectoral interests, which they pursue within the broader context of the NDR.
The above characterisation of the NDR and the motive forces find expression in our various policy and programmatic approaches. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (1993) provides a framework to meet our objectives in a manner that is achievable, sustainable, and meets the objectives of freedom and an improved standard of living and quality of life for all South Africans within a peaceful and stable society.
The RDP and the policy instruments that derive from it (sectoral policies, manifestos, etc) address the broad programmatic challenges facing us as we transform South Africa in the interest of the motive forces. In addition, it also identifies particular groups/sectors within the motive forces - who by virtue of the nature of oppression or discrimination that they face, because of particular vulnerabilities or specific sectoral issues or needs -must receive our targeted attention. These target groups include:
These groups, in addition to being disadvantaged as part of the black population under apartheid, face further indignities, oppression and are often outside of the mainstream of decision-making and power because they are women or differently-abled or because they are either too young or too old. As a progressive movement, the ANC over the decades has evolved to recognise the principle of consistent equality and thus progressively addressing the rights of various marginalised and disadvantaged groups, within the context of resolving the national question.
This means firstly, that in our policy approaches, we seek to mainstream the issues facing each of these targeted groups. Also, because we know that such mainstreaming will not happen automatically, we have put in place specific instruments to enable us to monitor the extent to which we are making progress.
This is also reflected in the institutions we have created to address the needs of these sectors. With the exception of the elderly, we have a Minister in the Office of the President and structures dealing with each of these sectors. It is precisely located in this highest office to enable proper integration into all policies of government and a birds-eye view of the impact of our policies and programmes on these sectors.
This paper and the work towards and at conference, will therefore be informed by this approach: ensuring that all other policy and political papers and commissions integrate the issues that are raised from these sectors; specifically evaluating the impact of our policies to date on each of the sectors and to make programmatic recommendations on speeding up change for each of these sectors.
Policy overview
Women: The ANC has always acknowledged that gender equality was a part of democracy but not its automatic by-product. The content of the liberation struggle thus included a distinct though integrated struggle for women's emancipation. Although the clear articulation of a non-sexist South Africa became prominent in the early 80's it had always been part of the ANC's approach hence the adoption of the slogan - "triple-fold" exploitation of women, the endeavour to integrate women's emancipation in the NLM's discourse and programmes, the drive to great numbers of women into all aspects of the ANC work, the existence of the Women's Section and later League and the launch of Women's Organisations in South Africa under the umbrella of the Congress movement. The ANC NEC in May 1990 adopted a comprehensive statement on the "Emancipation of Women in South Africa", the policy processes of late 80's and early 90's (Constitutional Guidelines, Ready to Govern and the RDP) integrated gender equality (focussing on both practical and strategic gender needs) and the 50th Conference in 1997 resolved that the NEC should integrate gender into all sections of Strategy and Tactics.
The ANC 50th National Conference also adopted a set of resolutions focussing on the programmatic aspects of the eradication of gender oppression. These include:
Though Conference called for the integration of gender in all aspects of policies and programmes, the resolutions did not provide a theoretical framework and an approach for how this should be done. And, although the resolutions focused on some programmatic issues, they fail to provide the movement with a coherent programme to eradicate sexism. Although the issues raised in the resolutions thus remain valid, it will require a comprehensive resolution on our programme to build a non-sexist society and provide a guide for the integration of gender into all aspects of our policies and programmes.
Youth: The formation of the ANC Youth League in 1944, laid the foundation for the importance the ANC attached to the mobilisation of youth as a social strata in subsequent decades. The RDP (Section 3.1.4) acknowledges that the youth are amongst the sectors that bore the brunt of apartheid policies and its legacy. It seeks to integrate the needs of youth in all sectoral policies and had a specific section on youth development, stating that its objectives should be to enable youth to realise their full potential and to participate fully in society and their future.
The ANC 50th National Conference recognised this approach through the responsibilities it gave to the ANC Youth League in the Strategy and Tactics and in the resolutions it adopted. The resolutions acknowledge work done in government to implement a youth development policy, including the institutions created, and call for the implementation of a national youth service programme. They also provide a framework for a youth policy, though the adequacy of this framework might be argued as it addressed the priorities of the time, which detracts from its durability as a policy framework.
People with disabilities: The RDP deals with the issues of disabilities, mainly under the section dealing with providing a social safety net, the rights of disabled workers, access to health, transport, special and care. The ANC 50th National Conference resolution more comprehensively defines a policy approach to disability, though in its programmatic area tends not to be as durable.
Children: The RDP focuses on children's rights with regards the provision of childcare, health, education, social safety net, transport, shelter, nutrition and safety and protection against violence. 50th Conference resolution only focuses on the Child Support Grant and the issue of maintenance, which were programmatic gaps at the time of conference.
The elderly: Like the two previous groups, the RDP mainly focuses on access to social services, health, transport, etc, but to a much lesser extent than the other groups. The Mafikeng resolutions set out a policy framework for our approach to the elderly.
Overview of implementation/situaltional analysis
The Constitution of the country provides a framework to ensure consistent equality and the eradication of discrimination in all spheres of life and for government to progressively address gender equality and the needs of targeted groups, children in particular. Our slogan of a 'better life for all' thus finds expression in the mobilisation of our people generally, these groups in particular and in how we use state power.
Women
Women comprise 52% of the population, and a slightly larger percentage in rural areas. More women than men are unemployed and women-headed households are generally poorer. Building a non-sexist society, like building a non-racial and democratic society is a complex social process, with many detours and challenges. Our definition of and goals towards achieving gender equality are guided by our vision of human rights, which incorporates the acceptance of the equal and inalienable rights of men and women, a fundamental tenet of our Bill of Rights and Constitution. This vision is further elaborated in the National Gender Policy Framework (2000) of government.
The tools we will use to assess progress since the democratic breakthrough in 1994, is to ask the questions: * What impact have our policies and programmes made on the quality of life and status of women SA? * Are we improving participation of women in all spheres of society; * Are we moving towards achieving gender equality and transforming gender relations in our society?
Equality: Clause 9 of the Constitution in the Bill of Rights guarantees equal rights for all South Africans, with specific reference to gender equality, elaborates on all of these and makes provision for policies and legislation to promote and protect equality. Thus the framework exists for gender equality in all spheres of society. Do the majority of women know this and are they able to effectively exercise their rights? Studies and our own experience reveal a yawning gap between the existence of rights and their implementation especially for the benefit of poor and rural women.
Access
Access to Decision-making: The objective here is to ensure that there is a critical mass of women in decision and policy-making structures in society and that their participation takes forward the objectives of gender equality. In this regard, the struggle for quotas by women at the 1991 National Conference of the ANC has had important spin-offs in broader society. As a result, the ANC has introduced a one third quota in all its lists for public representatives, directly resulting in South Africa being placed number 10 out of 130 parliaments in the world in terms of women's presence in governance.
Women make up 29.8% of Members of Parliament and 38.09% of Ministers and Deputy Ministers ensuring some important participation of women in decision-making processes at the highest level. We are beginning to reach the stage where, in all structures in society, the absence of women is being frowned upon. The presence of women in the decision-making levels in the private sector is still minimal.
Access to basic services. Our programme to create a better life for all is also addressing the practical gender needs, such as access to basic services such as housing, water, affordable energy, health and education. For example, by 2000, more than 40% of all housing subsidies allocated, were allocated to women-headed families. Our shift to primary health care, free health care to pregnant women and children under six years and the advances on reproductive rights also primarily benefit women, with decreases in maternal deaths. And, since women make up the majority of those living below the breadline, poverty alleviation programmes tend to either target mainly women (e.g. the Child Support Grant) or women are a specific target group (e.g. Work for Water).
Access to the economy. Our commitment to redistribution through policy instruments such as land reform, black economic empowerment and affirmative action has tended to favour men, because they are still favoured through the laws of succession, access to capital, markets, information, networks and education. Therefore, patterns of income and ownership not only remained defined by race, but also by gender.
The participation of African women in the economy is therefore still at very low levels, despite a long list of laws and policies aimed at empowering women. For example, about 47% of African women are unemployed, with only 38% of African women employed in the formal sector. Just over half of employed women work in the formal sector, compared with 74% of employed men. And, amongst the employed, women predominate in the low skilled and low paid professions. In the private sector, African women account for 0.9% of top management positions. In the public sector in the figure is 7,28%, somewhat lower than one would have expected.
Participation: There is often a direct relationship between the presence of women in positions of responsibility, and the advances we have made in putting the issues of gender equality and meeting practical gender needs on the national agenda. However, the presence of women in positions of responsibility does not automatically translate into their participation especially with the slow progress in changing Parliament as a patriarchal institution. Access alone is not a guarantee of both participation and transformation. It is therefore important that as women enter these spheres of decision-making, it is not left to them to change both the form and content of those institutions but that deliberate measures are taken to change them.
The historic patterns of the high level of participation of women in civic and community activity, whilst being marginalised from the leadership structures of social, community and civic movements remain. Also women and African women in particular, continue to be the most consistent support base of the ANC as shown in the four national, provincial and local elections we have had to date.
In the absence of common approaches to gender and a broad women's movement that would strengthen the voice of women, there is a gap between the grassroots women's activities and projects and those of the more advanced and educated women. Also, many feminists/activists seem to act unsure of the role that they can play in a democratic society and yet some others, including those in government, in their day-to-day operations seem to forget the gender agenda. As a result, we often find a backlash against these women - either from other women who accuse them of having made it on a women's ticket, but fail to advance the women's cause or from men who point to these women as tokens who do not add any value.
Women's participation at different levels of the public sphere still remains constrained because of factors such as values, culture and tradition that want to locate them in the private, not the public sphere; limited resources, education and skills; the difficulty of balancing responsibilities of the public political spheres with the gendered reproductive roles; socialisation that resulted in embedded inferiority complex; and women unfriendly environments reflecting sexism, sometimes reflected in sexual harassment.
Gender machinery: The gender machinery was established to amongst others formulate and monitor gender policy and the impact of government policies on women. The machinery consists of both the structures in government (the Commission for Gender Equality, the Offices on the Status of Women, gender focal points in departments, parliamentary committees on gender equality and structures in local government. All these structures are supposed to have their foundation on a vibrant progressive women's movement and coherent gender networks. However, these structures have themselves been very weak with apparently uncoordinated programmes. The CGE plagued by it own internal problems has not yet managed to successfully play its monitoring role. All these structures have as yet not cohered, coordinated and integrated their work to the extent required by our country and its conditions.
Transformation of gender relations: The new democratic government swiftly put in place constitutional, legislative, institutional frameworks toward achieving a democratic, non-racial and non-sexist dispensation. Amongst these are:-
Through their participation in various spheres of society, as individuals and as part of a critical mass of women, women are gaining recognition and thus shifting patriarchal mindsets and changing stereotypes about gender roles. There are in general, painfully slow strides towards changing the power relations between men and women, but although we still have a long way to go, the foundations are being built.
However the struggle is far from over and in some instance there is a backlash against the advances that we have made. For instance the high level of violence against women, especially domestic, may well be part of patriarchy's resistance to change thus taking the form of angry and violent men. We have not as yet gone far in acknowledging and addressing women's unpaid labour and the separation between the private and public domain. Sexist and chauvinistic attitudes in our society and even within the democratic movement still lag far behind the democratic reality.
Socialising institutions like the family, school, religion, the media, culture and traditional authority still continue to entrench gender stereotypes against women. The role of the Traditional Institutions as recognised by the Constitution has not been interrogated in relation to the place and role of women. While parliament has attempted to promulgate "gender sensitive" laws, very wide gaps still exist in ensuring gender mainstreaming in all our policies and the implementation of programmes.
The media is one of the key socialising institutions of any nation. In general the SA media is not only racist but also sexist. Our society, government included and women in particular, has as yet not been angered to a point of action by sexism in and a sexist media. And yet we are unlikely to go far in changing attitudes if we are unable to transform the media and simultaneously use it as tool to transform gender relations in society.
ANC and the ANCWL: Although we have made significant strides in government, to put in place policies and programmes to address gender equality, there are serious weaknesses in how as a movement we mobilise and give leadership to the forces to participate in the programme to transform gender relations and improve women's lives. The absence of a coherent theory and approach by the ANC on patriarchy and gender equality denies its membership tools of analysis and mobilisation. This is particularly so in a context of no role models worldwide to which to turn for experience.
The organisational profile of the Women's League after re-establishment as a mass legal entity after 1990 evolved, drawing its mass support mainly from working class women. This base, though not always organised into well-structured ANCWL branches, consistently and enthusiastically responds to calls for action - whether to protest against rape and child abuse, to participate in the local health committees to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and be part of home-base care or to celebrate August 9 every year or to turn out in large numbers during elections to renew the mandate of the ANC.
The League on the other hand has found it difficult to draw larger numbers of women from other national groups and social strata. Due to internal problems, it has not been the natural home for all ANC women, despite the fact that many ANC women activists in their own right are active and often leading in other women's and gender organisations. Furthermore, the ANC has also tended to package everything related to gender and women to be dealt with by the Gender committee or the ANCWL.
These problems that have plagued the women of the national liberation forces for close to a decade now, has meant that the ANC's impact on gender structures of the Alliance, our capacity to lead the broader women's movement, to give consistent direction to the gender machinery in government and overly impacting on the cause of gender equality in our country, have been diminished.
The Women's movement: Although gender oppression affects both men and women - in terms of roles and stereotyping - women objectively stand to gain most from gender equality and a non-sexist society. Thus, women themselves must be central in the struggle for gender equality. More specifically, given the analysis of how the national and class question intersect with patriarchy in our situation, at the centre of a broad non-racial, multi-class women's movement must be a progressive political formation of women, with African working class women as its driving force.
Women's organisations - during most of the 90 years of the existence of the ANC - played an important role in mobilising women to fight side by side with men for national liberation and to ensure that women's emancipation is on the agenda of the NLM.
Political mobilisation of women as part of the national liberation movement, strong grassroots organisation around issues affecting women directly or practical gender needs, organising women separately both as a tactic and strategic approach, forming fronts with a broad spectrum of women and ensuring that the broad liberation forces integrate gender into its policies and programmes were and remain the main strategic approaches to organisation pursued by the South African women's and gender movement. During the different historical epochs of the national liberation movement, this approach was implemented, taking account of the prevailing objective conditions of each period.
The understanding of the need for organising and the organisations of women to lead the struggle for their own emancipation not to the exclusion of others informed the formation of the WNC in 1992 and the consistent drive for a broad Women's Movement.
The breakthrough of 1994 posed a set of new challenges to the women's movement. On the one hand, they have won the arguments of equality in the Constitution, legislation and policies and of participation, which ensured a critical mass of women in government. On the other hand, this development led to large numbers of most experienced gender activists no longer as active within the women's movement. This resulted in its fragmentation and a tendency for women activists as individuals to pursue a gender agenda.
Youth
Young people (14 - 35) makes up a large proportion of the population, they are also a large section of the unemployed, and are particularly vulnerable with regards substance abuse, crime and violence, HIV/AIDS, STDs and teenage parenthood.
The ANCYL as an organ of the ANC to champion the interests of young people has also struggled to adapt to the new situation. Though effective in policy development, coordinating the various youth development machinery and lobbying behind the scenes to ensure that government integrate youth issues, in terms of mass mobilisation its structures were considerably weaker. It has therefore over the last two years embarked on a back-to-basics campaign to revitalise its structures, alongside the realignment process. Its 21st National Congress in 2001 further sought to reposition the League to play a much more visible role in championing the interests of youth. This approach has amongst other things resulted in the Youth League leading youth around the demand for jobs, taking up the issues of youth in the music industry and being a vocal proponent of transformation in sports.
The National Youth Commission (and provincial commissions) were established in 1996 with its main brief to develop a National Youth Policy for the country and to monitor and advocate for its implementation. In 1999 a joint parliamentary committee on Youth, Disabled and Children were established. Attempts have been made to establish structures at local government level, but this has been uneven. In civil society, youth organisations have formed the South African Youth Council, which engages with the NYC and represents the youth sector in the community chamber of NEDLAC.
Though the commission finalised this policy in 1997, it was adopted only in December 2001 as a youth policy of the whole of government. The National Youth Commission established an inter-departmental committee on youth in 1998, through which it inputs into programmes of different departments on youth and annually produces a report on all programmes for youth in government. This has been an important tool to monitor the implementation of the youth policy of government.
The NYC started work on a national youth service programme, but it has not moved much beyond policy and pilot stages. Government in 1998 announced the formation of the Umsobomvu Youth Fund, aimed at specifically addressing problems of youth unemployment and Labour adopted skills and learnerships as an important part of the National Skills Development Strategy. In Health, the national strategy against HIV/AIDS and STD's specifically target the youth, with movements to make clinics more youth-friendly, support for LoveLife and other youth initiatives.
A review of government's youth programmes suggests that there have been progressively greater programmatic commitment to youth development in different government departments since the establishment of the NYC (and the PYCs). Furthermore, the general programmes of government around human resource development, meeting basic needs, job creation and economic growth and safety and security provide great possibilities for an enabling environment for youth development.
However, the varied range of youth programmes and services provided by different departments, reach fairly small numbers of youth (less than a thousand, in many cases). The exceptions are those programmes that are part of the core business of departments like Education, Health and Labour. In other large-scale poverty alleviation programmes, the percentages of youth that benefited from these programmes are much lower than would be expected, given that they make up the highest proportion of the unemployed.
Children
Children are amongst the most vulnerable sectors in society and thus need very specific conditions to allow them to grow and develop within a safe and secure environment.
Children's rights in our country derive from the Constitution, our laws and various continental and international conventions. The National Programme of Action for Children was adopted by government in 1996 to ensure the progressive realisation of the rights enshrined in these covenants. It provides a holistic framework in which all departments are required to put children's issues on the agenda and services to children are coordinated and a vehicle at all levels for coordinated action between government, civil society and child related structures.
People with disability
People with disability form approximately 8.5% of the population. The White paper on an Integrated National Disability Strategy (INDS) calls for a change of approach to disability from the medical/social welfare model to a human rights/developmental model. As part of this approach the Office on the Status of Disabled People in the Presidency, a joint parliamentary committee on Disabled and other sectors and an interdepartmental collaborative committee were established.
The work of the Office on the Status of Disabled People to date included the development of policy, guidelines and norms and standards in various government departments; the commencement of an Economic Empowerment Project; guidelines on international self-representation and participation of disability issues, training of government officials to understand disability issues; interaction with and capacity building for civil society disabled structures; identifying disabled local councillors for training; the establishment of disability desks in some local councils and developing programmes in human rights and disability studies.
However, despite these advances, we still have a long way to go. A study to assess the extent to which 18 national government departments are integrating disability issues and implementing the policies in the White paper revealed that:
Our policies still do not adequately integrate disability issues, or where they do, these do not translate into adequate strategies, capacity, programmes, budgeting or monitoring, employment practices and research mechanism in departments aimed at integrating people with disability into the mainstream, they still tend to follow the medical/welfare model.
Very little effort is placed in creating public awareness about disability, as well as disability prevention (except in Transport) and there is insufficient involvement of disabled people's organisations in formulation and implementation of policies. * Despite the progress made to make all public buildings accessible to people with disability, we still have some way to go.
The Elderly
Programmes on the elderly to date have mainly focused on the extension of social security (pensions), the provision of care and the abuse of elderly persons. Work is in progress to develop a new and comprehensive policy framework. A draft (?) South African Declaration on Ageing has been developed which will be part of such a new policy framework.
A Committee was appointed by the Department of Social Development to study the situation of older persons and found that abuse and neglect of the elderly is common in residential homes, hospitals, within families, in communities and in pension queues and government offices. Of great concern was the absence of a coherent strategy to address this and a lack of planning, coordination and effective action.
Social services for the elderly remain highly fragmented, poorly managed, racially divided and under-resourced - the bulk of the budget continues to be spent on residential care and in all provinces homes remain racially divided and predominantly white. Little funding or support is given to services based in communities where the greatest number of frail and vulnerable elderly people live. The special attention, promised in the Welfare White Paper, to the protection of the rights of older persons because of the prevalence of age discrimination, abuse and exploitation, has not materialised.
While many acknowledge the social pension as an effective poverty alleviation programme, the Committee found that it remains fraught with prob lems. In 1996 the Committee for the Restructuring of Social Security (CRSS) recommended improvements to customer service. In 1998 the Public Service Commission investigation into social security services, more specifically, recommended a strategy with the Public Works Department to upgrade services at pension pay points. But by the year 2000 little had changed. Following this report, specific measures were put in place by the department to improve conditions at pay-out points and to involve civil society to ensure that older persons who qualify for a pension register to do so.
However, many challenges remain before we can truly say that our elderly get the respect and dignity they deserve.
Challenges of implementation
A number of cross cutting challenges confronting our programmes to redress and improve the standard of living of the targeted sectors, include:-
The Strategy and Tactics (1997), in its discussion of the "Character of the International Situation", departed from the premise "that South Africa is an African country". Accordingly, our approach to the continent "is underpinned by our commitment to, and active promotion of, the African renaissance: the rebirth of a continent that has so for far too long been the object of exploitation and plunder". This approach "recognises in the first instance the difficulties wrought on the continent by years of colonialism and unjust international relations, including the debt crisis, underdevelopment, social dislocation, and in some instances untenable political relations underpinned by forms of government that imperialism encouraged for its own selfish interests". Thus, "for us, this African renaissance is both a strategic objective and a call to action".
The Mafikeng National Conference, in its resolution on the "International Policy and Priorities" identified "the rapid pace at which globalisation is taking place in the world today" as one big challenge, and that "the process of globalisation is uneven leading to a widening gap between the rich and the poor both in developing and industrialised countries. Our continent, "particularly sub-Saharan Africa, is benefiting least from this process of globalisation, instead it has experienced a general decline in living standards and poverty is on the increase". Another challenge identified by the Mafikeng National Conference is "the undemocratic nature of many multilateral institutions, including the United Nations Security Council", and that "there is a pressing need for multilateral finance institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank to become more sensitive to the developmental needs, poverty and the debt trap of developing nations".
The National General Council elaborated further on these challenges, and committed our Movement, to, among others:
The January 8th Statement concluded that "the two specific challenges we face [with regard to the African renaissance] are to work with the rest of our Continent to ensure the success of the African Union (AU) and NEPAD, the New partnership for Africa's Development. Thus would the vision of African patriots be realized, of the regeneration of Africa and the birth of a new civilisation".
The purpose of this discussion document is to unpack the concept of the African renaissance, its relationship to the African Union and New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), and the strategic implications for the role of the ANC in the continent. The approach in the paper will be grounded in the thinking that the following six pillars will have to be in place for Africa to realise its renaissance:
Africa, Globalisation and the Characterisation of the International Situation
The 20th century was one of the important epochs in world history, and the 21st century promises to witness even more profound changes. However, there is generally a consensus that since the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and other former socialist states, the world has been going through a post-Cold War transition which is underpinned by, among others, the following factors:
Since the September 11 incident, the world has been entering an even more complex period. Cutting across these trends underpinning this global transition, is the process of globalisation.
Globalisation
Globalisation is one of the often used concepts, yet its definition is increasingly becoming more and more complex because the phenomenon itself, a late 20th century development as it is, has many and diverse manifestations that are subjected to ideologically-loaded interpretations. For the purpose of this discussion, the manifestation of globalisation can be grouped into the following categories:
Character of the African crisis
Africa as a region finds itself in worse situation at the dawn of the 21st century.
Geo-strategically, Africa has lost its value globally. With the end of the East-West conflict on our continent, not only have the Cold War superpowers withdrawn, but many parts of Africa have now degenerated into all sorts of conflicts within and between states with serious economic and humanitarian consequences. Also, whereas certain African raw materials continue to be important to the West, in general substitutes and alternatives have been found to, for example, gold and copper. This development has affected African countries, most of which have economies that are completely reliant on the export of these raw materials. The challenge is for Africans to assert themselves globally, but in order to do that, Africa needs (politically and economically) strong and stable countries that the world can reckon with.
Economic front: The structure and orientation of African economies remains unchanged. Most of the continent's economies are internally not integrated - with little or no functioning formal economic sector - and are externally oriented largely towards the export of unprocessed raw materials to the West. Without a significant indigenous entrepreneurial class, economic activity and development remains largely in the hands of the state. There is also very limited economic interaction among African economies in terms of intra-African trade, investment into each other's economy, convertibility of currencies, or generally in terms of the complimentarity of economies.
Social factors: poverty, disease and ignorance, 40 years after independence, still remain high on the list of key challenges facing the continent. Four in every ten Africans live in absolute poverty; and, according to the United Nation's Economic Commission for Africa; expectations are that the proportion of people living in poverty on our continent will increase in this millennium. The challenge here is to move speedily and aggressively against poverty and all other social ills, including the issue of health and educational needs of the people.
Political factors: The post-colonial state, as inherited from the colonial period, remains largely untransformed in some parts of the continent. In such cases, the African post-colonial state is being used as an instrument for self-enrichment by sections of the political elite, rather than for creating a better life for all. It is for this reason that access to the state is so important for this political elite, to the extent that elections have become a source of conflict in some African countries. The conflicts in Africa would not be happening had we had developmentalist states whose agenda is determined by the needs of the people. Therefore, the challenge here is to transform the African post-colonial state and liberate it from the greed of the political elite to orientate it towards serving the needs of the people. This challenge will have to address the capacity of the state as an institution as well as the code of conduct for the political elite that is at the helm of power and those in the opposition.
The African Union and NEPAD are an attempt to address all these dimensions of the African crisis. But first, we must begin with the African renaissance.
The AU-NEPAD and the African renaissance
The resolution of the 50th National Conference on "International Policy and Priorities" committed the ANC to initiating "a process of developing a theoretical framework and strategy to give content to our vision of the African renaissance". The implementation of this resolution resulted not only in government adopting the African renaissance as its policy vision, but the development of the African Union and NEPAD has now given this vision a practical edge.
The African renaissance, as a vision, has the following five dimensions:
The African Union and NEPAD are an attempt to operationalise this vision and create a new value system for our continent. The African Union provides an organisational vehicle for the realisation of the African renaissance, while NEPAD is the programme of action.
A discussion of the African Union and NEPAD must be located within the framework of the history of Africa's search for unity and its renaissance.
African's search for unity and its renaissance
Africa's search for unity and social and economic recovery is a centuries-old enterprise. The common historical experience of Africans of, first, slavery and, later, colonialism, ensured that Africans develop a common consciousness as one people with a common destiny. Two main responses developed in this regard: in the Diaspora, slaves and ex-slaves of African descent struggled against their second-class position in society and grabbled with their crisis of identity. The second response was by Africans on the continent; to oppose slavery, and with colonialism, to fight for their land and freedom.
These two responses converged into a Pan-African Movement which developed institutionally from the end of the 19th century. This Pan-Africanism rested on four elements:
The highest historical point of this process was the decolonisation process that began with Ghana in 1957. Therefore, the process leading to the present can be divided into the following four phases:
Phase I: 1960s to early 1970s: This is the period of high optimism and great expectation. One of the biggest achievements of this period was the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on May 25, 1963, as a platform for Pan-African unity and action at the global level. The OAU charter put a lot of emphasis on "sovereignty" and "non-interference" in the internal affairs of member states. There was no reference at all to issues of development and democracy.
Because the OAU could not interfere with how member states conducted their affairs within their borders, dictators were tolerated and left untouched, especially following the emergence of military regimes from the middle of the 1960s. Linked to this was the emergence of one-party states which many African leaders defended because they thought they could use it for nation-building and the fight against tribalism. Instead, in some cases, one-party states became instruments for mass repression and the canonisation of the "Father of the Nation". Thus this period witnessed the "death" of the masses who were in the forefront of the struggle against colonial rule.
There were developments that were positive during this period. For example, the OAU's struggle against colonialism ensured that colonialism and apartheid were defeated in the continent.
Phase II: 1970s to 1980s: In the 1970s, about a decade after the formation of the OAU, African leaders took concrete steps aimed at addressing the developmental plight of the continent. Important in this regard was the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA) which was adopted by the OAU in 1980. The LPA tried to set a 20-year developmental agenda for the continent with focus on seven priority areas, on the basis of the principles of collective self-reliance and self-sustaining development and economic growth. The LPA also set the agenda for regional integration and the establishment of an African Economic Community.
Therefore, Africa entered the 1990s with its hope for a renaissance shattered.
Phase III: 1990s to 2000: The 1990s created better political conditions for the acceleration of African renaissance attempts. The end of the Cold War not only lessened political divisions on the continent, but it also created better conditions for the resolution of intra- and inter-state conflicts. Secondly, the wave of democratisation that hit the continent from 1989, on the one hand, imposed conditions for the transformation of the post-colonial state, and on the other, reactivated and re-mobilised the African masses for the good cause of the continent. Popular participation and public-private partnership gained importance as essential ingredients for the continent's renaissance. Finally, the liberation of Namibia and South Africa closed a chapter of the continent's colonial history, and created conditions for a reassessment of Pan-Africanism.
The adoption of the Abuja Treaty by the OAU in 1991 was an important step in this regard. The Treaty was an attempt to take forward the LPA vision of regional integration with its objective of creating an African Economic Community by 2025. The organs of the African Economic Community include some of the institutions that were to be incorporated into the African Union; that is, the Pan-African Parliament, the Economic and Social Council, Specialised Technical Committees, as well as the Court of Justice.
However, one problem with the integration strategy proposed in the Treaty was that it was based on the European integration model of beginning with the integration of economies before creating union-wide political institutions. A market-driven approach to regional integration works when countries involved have strong and viable economies, and this is not the case with Africa. So, an alternative model had to be found: that of beginning with the creation of union-wide political institutions.
For this reason, the OAU Extra-Ordinary Summit in Sirte, Libya, in 1999, put politics in the lead and revised the Treaty's time frames. This also made it necessary to review the OAU as a structure and its mandate. Thus a decision was taken in the form of the adoption of the African Union Constitutive Act in Togo in 2000, to tranform the OAU into a new structure -the African Union. At its 2001 Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, the OAU took a decision to launch the African Union, and this happened recently in Durban.
The African Union is a significant and strategic development when compared to the structure and mandate of the OAU. In terms of mandate, unlike the OAU which was merely political, the African Union is both a political and economic formation. It is not just a Pan-African platform for leaders to pronounce themselves on common positions, but it is also aimed at creating a community - an integrated political, social and economic whole. The envisaged African Union institutions include the Pan-African Parliament, Financial Institutions (Central Bank, Investment Bank, and Monetary Fund), Court of Justice and the Economic, Social, and Cultural Council (for representation of civil society).
Furthermore, whereas the OAU objectives put more emphasis on sovereignty and "non-interference", with no reference at all to issues of democracy, governance and human rights, for the African Union democracy, good governance and respect for human rights are very important, and there is also a qualification on "non-interference". The African Union Constitutive Act recognises "the right of the Union to intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly - in respect of grave circumstances, namely: war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity". Also, the African Union will not be silent on coups as it was the case with the OAU. The African Union Constitutive Act, taking from the decision of the 1999 Algiers Summit of the OAU, is very unambiguous on this: "Governments which shall come to power through unconstitutional means shall not be allowed to participate in the activities of the Union".
The successful launch of the African Union in Durban was indeed one of the continent's biggest achievements since independence. Among the decisions taken by the Summit, are the following:
Phase IV: 2000 to the present: The launch of the African Union and NEPAD characterise the current phase.
NEPAD as a programme of action of the African Union is informed by the wealth of experience that the continent has accumulated since independence. This experience includes the difficulties the continent faced with the implementation of plans such as the Lagos Plan of Action.
The NEPAD, as adopted at the OAU Lusaka Summit, is a strategic development on how Africa's recovery plans were developed in the past. The initiative is led by member states with identifiable political champions, and is informed by a commitment that African leaders must make themselves.
There are three components to the NEPAD process. The first is a set of principles that the leaders commit themselves to: NEPAD is a pledge by African leaders, based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place their countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development, and at the same time to participate actively in the world economy and body politic. The initiative is anchored on the determination of Africans to extricate themselves and the continent from the malaise of underdevelopment and exclusion in a globalising world. It is a call for a new relationship of partnership within countries in African and between Africa and the international community to overcome the development chasm - a partnership to be founded on a realisation of common interests, benefit and equality.
NEPAD is premised on African states making commitments to good governance, democracy and human rights, while endeavouring to prevent and resolve situations of conflict and instability on the continent. To this end, leaders who are part of the NEPAD process will accede to the "Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance". This declaration sets out a standard and outlines what NEPAD member countries will be required to do on matters of democracy, political and economic governance. Leaders who accept the conditions set out in this declaration will also subject themselves to a Peer Review Mechanism, which will entail a period assessment by an independent body of the performance of NEPAD member countries on matters of democracy, political and economic governance.
The second component of the NEPAD process is a strategic policy framework and a detailed Programme of Action, which is constructed around the following three strategies:
The third component of the NEPAD process are the institutions that have been established for coordination and implementation of the programme of action. The Implementation Committee, made up of 20 member countries (four from each of the five African Union regions) is responsible for the overall coordination, and reports to the African Union Summit. The day-to-day operations are the responsibility of the NEPAD Secretariat.
NEPAD has also created new bases and terms for dialogue with the North on Africa's plight. No longer will the North determine what Africa needs and where their Aid should be directed. As a result, the countries of the North, individually and collectively, are pronouncing themselves on NEPAD and revising their development packages for Africa with the view to aligning them to NEPAD. In this sense, the NEPAD has given Africa the initiative in its engagement with the North, and has the potential of even tampering with the balance of forces globally in our favour.
The following are some of the achievements at the global level that we can attribute to NEPAD:
Across the continent, the NEPAD process is:
African Motive Forces for Change
The realisation of the African renaissance will require a strong mass mobilisation and civil society participation; the masses remain the prime makers of history. The African Union is founded on very strong principles of mass mobilisation and popular participation, to the extent that a special organ is envisaged for civil society representation. The NEPAD pre-process will also require very strong civil society participation.
Secondly, there are social forces that emerged in reaction to increased wars and conflicts in the continent. These forces, many of which are linked to the church, women and other pacifist movements, are rooted among the grassroots and are in day-to-day contact with the victims of wars and conflicts on the ground. They are a force that can be mobilised behind a campaign for a conflict-free Africa.
Thirdly, there are also social movements that are involved in campaigns against debt, some are even part of the global "anti-globalisation" movement. These forces also have a progressive potential, but are vulnerable to the extremism and ideological adventurism of ultra-leftists and anarchists.
Fourthly, are the sectoral formations such as the trade union movement, youth and women structures, and peasant organisations. The strength of these formations varies from country to country and sub-region to sub-region, but there is generally a view that they are organisationally and ideologically weak.
Finally, as to the African non-governmental sector (NGOs), these structures play an important role in many African communities. Many of them have now assumed functions that are traditionally performed by governments because of the collapse of many African states in the 1980s. However, in many respects, the African NGO sector is not an independent voice, but an extension of Western influence because of its dependency on donor funding. It is partly for this reason that its relationship with the African political elite is an uncomfortable one.
- Party-to-party links, especially with former liberation movements, African members of the Socialist International, and other fractions of the NEPAD-oriented political establishment;
- Relations with sectoral formations through the Leagues, the Alliance and other civil society organs and sectoral formations;
- Giving leadership to government on matters of policy and deployment;
- Promoting people-to-people relations.
Conclusion: The role of South Africa in the Continent
The question of the role of South Africa in the continent will always come up, and will have to be addressed with courage and humility. South Africa, objectively, has the characteristics of a middle-power, which are:
However, in order for South Africa to play a role in the continent, the country will need to go beyond the will and start addressing its capacity to exercise such a role
There are two ways that South Africa can meaningfully contribute to the African renaissance:
Our approach to international relations is contained in Ready to Govern, the Reconstruction and Development Programme, Strategy and Tactics documents and Conference resolutions. In addition, the ANC also adopted a detailed 'Foreign policy Perspectives in a Democratic South Africa' in 1994.
The Foreign policy perspectives list seven principles, which informs our approach to international relations:
The 50th National Conference of the ANC (1997) placed the African renaissance at the centre of our international relations. This is reflected in the Strategy and Tactics, when it says: "our starting point therefore is the obvious: that South Africa is an African country." National Conference thus elaborated our vision of the African renaissance, including its motive forces and the tasks facing the ANC and government.
The Strategy and Tactics also situates our transition to democracy and our transformation process in its international context: "The liberation of South Africa is both a local expression of a changing world and part of the catalyst to renewed efforts aimed at attaining international consensus on the most urgent questions facing humanity. Our transition was an element of a dynamic political process of a world redefining itself with the end of the Cold War. To the extent that the new global situation has not resolved the contradictions within and among nations between poverty and opulence; to the extent that ethnic, religious and other tensions continue to ravage parts of the globe; to the extent that some of these contradictions find bold expression in our own society; to this extent and more, the transformation taking place in our country is closely intertwined with the search for a new world order."
It sets out the tasks of the ANC as taking an "active part in shaping this order, both in the context of its relations with other parties and movements, and as the leading organisation in government. In both these areas of operation, it will pursue the same objectives. Yet we do recognise that, in their detail, party-to-party aims will not always translate into inter-state relations. This is not to imply that inter-state relations are devoid of principle. Rather, it is to underline that, in government, the implementation of our principles will be tempered by the realities of the world diplomacy and conventions governing inter-state relations".
The 1997 National Conference and the National General Council in 2000 therefore adopted resolutions on International policy and priorities, on party-to-party relations, on solidarity with Western Sahara and Palestine, on the transformation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and on the arms exports.
Overview of Implementation
The ANC has been active in the implementation of policy on international affairs, based on our foreign policy perspective and resolutions of the 1997 National Conference
The NEC International Affairs Committee has overseen the re-establishment of the International Affairs Unit at headquarters, which is headed by a full-time NEC member. However, the structure does not have sufficient capacity to respond to the many demands in this area.
African renaissance: The Strategy and Tactics document notes that the African renaissance is both a strategic objective and a call to action: "It must be underpinned by the mobilisation of the people of Africa to take their destiny into their own hands." Much of the focus of the ANC´s international work has been to build relations with progressive forces in Africa, strengthening relations with our historical counterparts in southern Africa - SWAPO, MPLA, FRELIMO and ZANU-PF - and building ties of cooperation with other African countries.
The NEC identified the following immediate tasks of the African Renaissance: ending military rule on the continent ; ending military conflict on the continent; strengthening democracy in SADC, particularly in countries that are newly-democratised or recovering from war, and eradicating poverty and promoting economic development.
The ANC has played a particularly active role in Southern Africa. The number of parties in the region wanting to meet with and develop relations with the ANC is an indication of the high expectations of the ANC and the government to play a leading role in the region. It has hosted and attended meetings of the Southern African former liberation movements.
The Unit has also played an important role in helping to build capacity around peace on the continent by engaging with parties in the DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, the Sudan and so forth.
The NEC and NWC on a regular basis received briefings and discussed developments on the continent. Key amongst these have been preparations for the launch of the African Union and the process towards the development of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). [NOTE: These issues are discussed in more detailed in the paper on the ANC and the challenges facing the African continent]
Party to party relations: Work of the International Affairs Unit at headquarters has also focused on the development of party-to-party relations. To promote links and dialogue with other political parties and formations at an international level, the NEC Committee and headquarters unit has met various ambassadors and party representatives. It has also attended various party congresses or other party activities.
Interaction has taken place with parties from China, central, southern and west Africa, the Caribbean and Europe. We have also met with representatives of unions, women's organisations, parliamentarian groups, international institutes and multi-lateral organisations.
The ANC has joined the Socialist International, opening the way for closer interaction with over 140 socialist, social democratic and labour parties and organisations from all continents.
These interactions have indicated the high esteem in which the ANC and its leadership is held and the expectations that exist for the ANC to assist in the resolution of national, regional and international conflicts and in pursuing a progressive international agenda.
These interactions have opened the door for greater cooperation around solidarity work, information sharing, election campaigning, cadre training and party organisation, and financial and material assistance
Solidarity: In accordance with our Conference Resolution on Palestine, there have been several meetings with representatives of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to receive briefings on the situation in the Middle East and to look at strategies to find a speedy resolution to the problem. There has also been interaction with the Polisario Front and the Moroccan ambassador on the negotiations and scheduled referendum on the decolonisation of Western Sahara. This process is ongoing.
The activities of the Department of Foreign Affairs during this period have included:
The ANC has supported a programme in support of regional peace and security by developing economic partnerships particularly in the areas of transport and energy with countries in the southern African region and further afield on the continent. The partnerships that Eskom, Transnet and other state enterprises are building with Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia and Uganda gives material reality to the process of African development. Another visible manifestation of the Renaissance and regional integration is the establishment of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park between South Africa and Botswana and progress being made on the more ambitious Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezho Transfrontier Park between South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
Work has continued throughout all the regions of the world to promote South African interests and to further the agenda of Africa and the South. This has included the further development and strengthening of relations with the European Union through the free trade agreement and visits at an executive level, including bi-lateral commissions and forums.
South Africa continues to play a leadership role in the South through our chairpersonship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Commonwealth. We have also worked consistently to further the economic interests of the South through the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Seattle process and UNCTAD.
South Africa has been a vocal proponent of improved South-South relations, which was demonstrated by the role played by South Africa at various international fora. We have also been active in efforts to decisively address the problem of debt in developing countries, particularly initiatives around the Highly Indebted Poor Countries.
The ANC continues to motivate and lobby for the reform of the United Nations (UN), including the restructuring of the UN Security Council, so that it is more representative and is better equipped to respond to the needs of the developing countries. This work takes place through our participation in multilateral fora including the UN; through interaction with other governments, political parties and groupings; and by raising the issue in the public arena.
The government is also centrally involved in efforts to democratise and ensure greater accountability of the IMF and the World Bank. One of the challenges that the organisation faces is to interact and participate more centrally in the several national forums working on matters of international significance. This challenge goes to the heart of the ANC´s ability to be at the centre of transformation not only in South Africa, but also on the continent and in the world more broadly.
Provincial international affairs structures: Involvement in implementing the ANC international programme has largely been limited to headquarters and to the Department of Foreign Affairs and other national departments such as Trade and Industry, Defence, Finance and Public Enterprises. Provincial governments have also been involved in the development of intra-governmental and trade relations, not only with neighbouring countries with whom they share a border, but also with countries further afield with which they have established cultural or economic ties. Several local councils have also built relations with counterparts across the world.
Despite a resolution to this effect, the International Affairs Committee at a national level has not been replicated at a provincial level, except in Limpopo and KZN provinces. The ANC Women´s League has been active in international affairs. The League is the secretary of the Pan African Women´s Organisation (PAWO) in the southern region, and is involved in the process of restructuring PAWO and defining its role in relation to the tasks of the African Renaissance. The League participates in the Socialist International Women and is a member of the Women´s International Development Foundation (WIDF).
The Youth League has been elected as Africa Coordinator of the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) and participates in its activities. The League has been working with the Southern African Youth Forum to build a strong youth movement in Africa. The League also does solidarity work with the Swaziland Youth Congress and UJUSARIO (Western Sahara).
New challenges and issues for discussion
Characterisation of the international situation: Since 1997 Conference, there are new developments and challenges in the world, which we should reflect on as we discuss the international situation. These include:
Twinning of cities and municipalities: Approaches and relations develop among the world municipalities, between cities, towns and provincial governments in the world that leads to twinning agreements. South Africa did not benefit much from this long-standing practice during the apartheid era, due to its exclusion, sanctions and international isolation in the international body politic. With the democratic changes in our country and our integration into the world community, many of the cities, towns, municipalities and provinces have entered into governance cooperation or twinning agreements in areas of economic development, exchange programmes in arts, culture, science & technology, development, education, human resource, sports, safety & security (policing), etc.
The ANC is the majority party in most of these cities and municipalities, yet we have no policy on this matter. There are mechanisms in Foreign Affairs that govern these relations, but they tend to be procedural. We therefore need to develop a policy on this matter, within the context of our broad foreign policy objectives. Such a resolution should also take forward the Mafikeng resolutions on coordinating international work at provincial and local levels.
Refugee Policy and Legislation: South Africa is receiving an increasing number of refugees from mainly Africa. Our laws are inadequate to deal with this matter, nor do we have adequate infrastructure to receive and host refugees. Amongst the issues that a refugee policy and legislation must address include the stringent applications and renewal rules and regulations and the protection of the human rights of refugees whilst in our country.
The policy should also elaborate on matters such as a qualification criteria. At the moment, our legislation makes provision for refugees from countries at war. Should we broaden this to include refugees from countries not at war, e.g. where citizens are subjected to detentions without trials?
Although new legislation (Immigration Act of 2002) was passed, which repealed the old Aliens Control Act, it still does not sufficiently deal with the plight of refugees to enable South Africa to play a leading role in the resolution of the problem of African refugees. We need to revisit and review the legislation and align it to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UN HCR) and other international agencies, policies on refugees, enforcement mechanisms, their rights and limitations, human rights, control mechanisms, movements, their protection and legality.
We should also acknowledge that the problem of political refugees will be resolved through the ending of wars, conflicts, dictatorship, coups and the entrenchment of good governance, democracy, growing its economy and development as outlined in NEPAD and other agreements.
Party to party relations and our participation in international bodies: Policy guidelines on International Policy, International Cooperation and Responsibility should be developed. These must define in the main the ANC approach on party-to-party relations informed by its policies on non-racialism, non-sexism, and economic prosperity as characterised by the National Democratic Revolution (NDR), the building of a progressive movement in the region and the continent, membership of the ANC into international bodies such as the Socialist International and OSPAAL in solidarity work and shaping/creation of a better Africa and the world, establish links with parties, governments and solidarity organizations across the globe and creating structures in the provincial level and building cadres who will understand international politics at all levels.
Such Guidelines should amongst other things include policy imperatives such as:-
Review and amending of our Foreign Policy perspectives: The review and amendments should take account the new developments in the world and on our continent, in particular in Southern African and the launch of the African Union and NEPAD.
It may also be necessary to update specific aspects of the document, such as the sections on the Middle East, Asia/Oceanic, Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, North America and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Other sections such as on International Economic Relations, the Environment, International financial institutions, and so forth should be reworked to reflect current realities and the work we have done in the last eight years and the changing global situation.
We should also expand Policy on South Africa's Foreign Representation and on the Diplomatic Service.
This discussion paper seeks to stimulate a constructive debate that should inform the ANC's perspective and strategy with regards to mass communication in a democratic South Africa. The document highlights and examines the following:
This debate should sensitize all of us about the critical issues we must consider as we communicate on a daily basis. It should enable the movement to produce media strategies that are responsive to some of the above-mentioned factors.
Because the ANC is fundamentally about changing the lives of people, our approach to mass communication will be an extension of social or human communication. Therefore, although mass communication plays a vital and visible role, there are other areas of communication that bear a profound influence in shaping the movement and developments in society. Some of the types of human communication that has influence include:
Intra-personal communication: This aspect of communication relates to individual thought processes. To us, this should be an area of interest because it impacts on the broader objectives of the ANC of nation-building. Individual thoughts, attitudes and values are of critical importance for the ANC's success in its revolutionary mission. This aspect of communication is important in our quest to intensify the culture of democracy and raising understanding and consciousness of the various issues and challenges confronting the movement.
Interpersonal communication: Communication at the interpersonal level is about effective sharing and transmission of ideas and information between and amongst people. Can we say with confidence that this process of dialogue is truly taking place within the movement? Or we are just speaking across each other? As a movement, we need to always encourage a culture of dialogue as it brings better understanding amongst comrades. As a movement there will arise from time to time differences on how as comrades we view issues and possible solutions to them. Needless to say, effective interpersonal communication enables us to explore the challenges and harmonize our approach to them.
Furthermore, in our political work, we need to engage with our members and broader society, and our ability to master interpersonal communication will bring a closer understanding of the movement's values, cultures and policies.
Group communication: The ANC has a strong culture of group communication, it is an effective way of bringing cohesion and qualitative growth to any organization.
Our organization with a background of underground operation has survived and grown because of group communication. During those days, small structures generally referred to as cells were established as means of survival to keep our organization strong.
It is critical to keep in mind the importance of this type of communication within our ranks. Therefore, the ANC should always endeavor to keep group communication alive and vibrant to enhance very strong political education programmes. This aspect of communications establishes cohesion between the various structures and organs of our movement.
Public communication: This type of communication is the foundation of the ANC's communication processes with its traditional target constituency -the motive forces. To try and reach out to as many people as possible without any modern day mass communication technology, the ANC throughout its history relied on key public speakers to spread its vision. Speakers like Pixley ka Isaka Seme would continuously convey ANC messages by word of mouth predominantly addressing large gatherings in townships and rural areas.
This manner of communication has strong advantages such as: feedback is quick between sender and receiver and it creates an opportunity for direct physical conduct with the relevant constituency
Recent effectiveness of this form of communication has been demonstrated through the Imbizo programme in which the President, Cde Thabo Mbeki has met and discussed with hundreds of thousands of people in various locations and places and the people's forums we have during election campaigns.
Based on our long experience in communication as a movement, we should always put public communication at the center of our outreach programme.
Organisational communication: This form of communication takes place in the setting of an organization, it may be affected in a structured or unstructured way when people communicate horizontally or vertically within the organization. The ANC always emphasized the multi - minded approach in which all organization members are valued for their ability to contribute to the effective functioning of the organization.
Therefore, the flow of accurate information from within (from members) and also from outside, is a basis upon which leadership and structures are made aware of problems that require some form of change. This means that ANC leadership and structures at all levels increasingly need to be aware of the various forces of change that have potential to influence the functioning of the organisation.
ANC is currently faced with many challenges, many of which are mandated to it through the tasks of our national democratic revolution and others flow as a result of the strategic position that South Africa occupies within the continent. All of the above mean that the organization's boundaries must be sensitive to the external changes, to enable it to cope effectively with these changes.
It is also this climate of challenges and changes that offer an opportunity to the movement to register successes in organizational goals, long -term survival and growth. The issue of organizational communication emphasizes that the responsibility of communication cuts across all members of the organization, it is therefore not only the responsibility of our communications unit.
This also calls for the full understanding of all organizational policies, programmes, processes and values by all members of the organization in order to create an environment of effective organizational functioning. Finally, this method of communication is the most critical component in creating organizational cohesion.
Context of Mass communication [Note: Media in this discussion will be used as a term to include all forms of mass media including print and electronic media, radio, television, advertising and the Internet.]
The strategic nature and effectiveness of mass communication was predicted long time ago by a communications scientist, Marshall Mclulan (1964) when he said that by the 20th century, the mass media will have turned the world into a "global village". This would be a world in which we will all have become part of what is happening elsewhere so much so, that we will not be able "to go home anymore". The reason for this is the fact that information about events occurring all over the world can become common knowledge within a very short time and enter our homes, as well as our places of work and play.
Mass communication is a very important and distinctive phenomenon of the current South African history. It has been a critical component of the ANC functional machinery since inception. In making its messages available to thousands of people throughout South Africa and abroad, this movement had relied on mass communication both in spoken and printed words. As a result of this deep appreciation of the importance of mass communication, the ANC was able to grow from strength to strength. The movement continued to satisfy people's desire to be liberated, to learn about things unknown and new to them through mass communication.
Mass communication, unlike the previous forms of communication that we noted, reaches out to relatively large, heterogeneous and anonymous audiences and constituencies. Also unlike most other forms of communication, mass communication relies on the use of highly technical or electronic devices (television, radio, newspapers, books, film or a combination of these) in order to transmit the messages to a relatively large number of people. As a result of the effect of mass communication to the people's consciousness, it will form the main focus of our discussion.
Our profound interest in understanding mass communication in general and mass media in particular arise from our acceptance of our role as the leader of the national democratic forces for transformation. It is therefore expected that, we should be the main communicators of the South African vision, which in turn will influence attitudes and values of the broader society.
Our responsibility is so huge that that we cannot afford to be lethargic or indifferent on whether encoded messages from the movement and government are accurately decoded by the mass media or not. It will be the accurate transmission and high quality of messages that will guarantee establishment of some common understanding within the broader society.
Further, we should also understand that mass communication "always operates in a social context - it influences society and society influences the media" (A.S.de Beer 1998:6) Therefore, mass communication can be a very effective way of influencing attitudes and opinions. The relations of the movement and mass media are informed by the understanding of the critical importance of the role of mass media during the process of social change.
The above metaphors illustrate how editors, journalists, advertising houses etc. process information so as to influence and affect the attitudes, values and lifestyles of people born in a specific era. This to some extent attempts to explain how slanting in news reports and editing of television documentaries can be effected to satisfy the interest of certain sections of society.
The democratic movement as led by the ANC should proactively engage with the media issues so as to ensure a proper reflection and representation of the complex democratic transformation process in order to mobilize the masses of our people to act in unity as shapers of their own destiny.
The Political economy of the South African media
"The underlying logic of cost operates systematically, consolidating the position of groups already established in the main mass media markets and excluding those groups who lack the capital base for successful entry. Thus the voices that survive will largely belong to those least likely to criticize the prevailing distribution of wealth and power. Conversely, those most likely to challenge these arrangements are unable to publicize their dissent or opposition because they cannot command resources needed for effective communication to a broad audience" (Murdock & Golding: 1977: 37).
The phenomenon of an expanding media without diversity can best be explained by a look at the political economy of the media. Public, private and community tiers characterize the South African media system. The SABC as a public broadcaster owns the majority of radio stations (both public mandate stations and commercial stations) and TV stations (three free-air-channels and two subscription channels).
There are fifteen (15) privately owned radio services targeting the metropolitan areas. Furthermore, there are two private entities that provide one free-to-air service and subscription television.
All these services rely mainly on advertising revenue for their existence and survival. Even the SABC that draws on license fees still has advertising revenue accounting for seventy five percent (75%) of it's funding.
The print press is all privately owned and relying entirely on advertising revenue for its operations, existence and survival. These newspapers are read by no more than a fifth of the population.
The community sector that has seen the roll-out of a hundred stations since 1994. It relies on grants, some form of government support and advertising revenue for its survival. The community stations that thrive are those that are able to draw considerable advertising revenues.
The media sells audiences to advertisers in this commercial transaction. South Africans are categorized into different groups based on living styles, class positions, employment status, education, culture and other indicators. These are then translated to the economic power they command as target groups measured by the disposable income they have.
Advertisers who buy these segmented portions of the South African population as audiences are mainly interested in their disposable income. Advertisers place their adverts in the selected media to catch this disposable income. Needless to say, its not all segments of the South African population that is of interest to the advertisers due to their socio-economic position. Media that addresses itself to these South African stand little chance or no chance at all to survive. The opening up of the broadcasting sector serves as a good example. Yfm and Khaya fm despite enjoying millions of listeners have struggled to remain afloat. This has been in sharp contrast to stations like Highveld and Jacaranda, also in Gauteng, but enjoying far less patronage.
This reliance on advertising revenue therefore places direct limitations on the ability of media to expand and reach the majority of South Africans. Commercial considerations are at the apex of consideration of what market to target and what content to deal with and what perspectives reflected.
For the considerable future, advertisers will not be interested in some segments of the South African population. Even public entities like the SABC will be limited in terms of providing media or programmes within its channels that primarily address themselves to the segments of the South African population that are not of interest to the advertisers.
The political economy of the media places the interest of the advertisers, and well-off South Africans above the interests of other citizens. Patronage by the advertisers skews the media landscape and consequently distorts the democratic process and debate.
There needs to be a re-evaluation of our approach to the political economy of the media with the view to ensure balance in the reflection of the needs and interests of the South Africans citizens and the projection of their voices on all major national developments. Only through the strengthening of the public and community spheres can this balance be restored. But these should exist to address ascertainable needs that are not covered by and are of no interest to the commercial media.
There is need to develop a public funded model in order for the public and community media to serve as vehicles to articulate the needs of the poor, rural people, women, labour and other marginalized constituencies.
This model should accept the limitations of the advertising and commercially driven media. Reliance on advertising will in any event create poor cousins of the commercial media that are straight jacketed to deal with citizens and issues that advertisers are interested in only.
Current discussion on media is premised on the notion that any proposal must contain explicit sources of funding other than public funds. In addition, no proposal is exempt from requirements that it will be self-funding and draw on the private sector. It is our argument that this framework is politically loaded and contains seeds that will derail the creation of a diverse and inclusive media that will draw all South Africans into the political debate.
Therefore, the emergence of a stably funded inclusive public and community media should have a profound effect on the media culture. It must allow for the sectors of society normally excluded tobe visible and heard. It must address issues of agenda setting at apolitical domain giving space to what the media so far has considered off-limits.
To a large extent, the way media function is largely determined by economic power structure and the stratification of a society. It is assumed that whoever owns or controls the media can choose or set limits to what they do and what messages to produce. This provoke serious questions about the ownership and general media economic interests that in turn influence information produced by South African media.
Globally, there are concerns that economic concentration of certain media industries in the hands of a few conglomerates like CNN etc. might widen the knowledge gap, between the information rich and information - poor countries. The deep concern of the movement is the First World - Third World media infrastructure composition in our country.
While the country boasts some world - class technical media qualities in the printing and broadcasting industries, it has relatively low level of print media penetration in impoverished rural areas. As a result of this situation, information and knowledge gap between urban and rural areas is widening.
This uneven information flow leads to a situation where those who reside in rural areas become victims or easy prey of various forms of information manipulation. As a movement, we need extra-ordinary strategy to improve methods and mechanisms of enhancing vibrant communication system in the rural areas.
The legal and regulatory framework
Some of the factors that shape mass media are legislative, regulatory and technological in nature in nature. The Constitution as it stands entrenches the right to freedom of expression, the right to equality and human dignity as provided in the founding provisions contained in chapter 1 of the Constitution. The Constitution also mandates that open democracy and the equality Act be promulgated.
To give effect to the meaning of the Constitution and ensure the transformation of the media, pieces of legislations were enacted which provided for a media that reflect the democratic South Africa. One of such legislations was the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act (IBA), which created a framework for an independent and apolitical regulation of media related issues without any form of government or private sector interference. The IBA Act was in accordance with the provision of the Constitution, which required the regulation of the media services independently and in the public interests.
This bold step was aimed at freeing the mass communication from the past prejudices and it was acknowledged that such attempts would be received with resistance by those forces opposed to change, but nonetheless an important foundation to build on for the purposes of realizing the ultimate goal of an unbiased mass media in South Africa.
Another argument advanced was for the limitation of cross media control to curtail the dominance of particular forces in the media because of economic abilities. A framework was created for the control of the mass media by the people from those communities who would not have been able to have such access due to our unfortunate past.
A number of other legislations have been put in place in recognizing the need to have an unbiased media and the future thereof. The Broadcasting Act of 1999 is one of such legislation that created a framework for the transformation of mass media. The Broadcasting Act provides as one of its objectives a broadcasting system in the country, which takes into account diversity in the form of languages, culture, social and political in the country. It therefore requires the promotion of unity in diversity by acknowledging the past and building on it.
In recognition of the fact that the current mass media system does not take into account poor people and people based in the rural areas, the Media Development and Diversity Act has since been passed to ensure roll out of media services to those communities that are not covered by the current system.
The changes that have occurred in the media environment since 1994 have not been as far reaching as to transform the political realities of media in South Africa. Despite these changes, there still is no significant media, which represents and articulates the aspirations, viewpoints and interests of the biggest constituency in the country. The functioning of the media is still rooted in its history in the political divide that has characterized South Africa since the advent of apartheid.
These are merely attempts to liberate the media from the current bondage and it must be noted that these attempts have met resistance from forces who want to resist change and a better life for all. Despite this, a foundation for the transformation of mass media has been laid and it is a responsibility of every progressive South African to protect the gains achieved.
However, it is imperative that we consider building on this foundation and accelerating change in transforming the media system so that it can connect with the mass of citizens who in fact comprise "democracy". Media restructuring must take place as part of the broader political movement to democratize, deracialise and create a non-sexist South Africa.
It is the fundamental duty of the ANC, the Alliance and all democrats, including democratic intellectuals to rip the veil off the power of media and transform media into an agent that enables equitable decision-making.
The legacy of apartheid
It is important that consideration be given to the background, which has produced the media that South Africa has today, to understand the relationship between representatives of our society and the media. The present media conjuncture is a by-product of similar conditions that shaped the prevailing socio-economic environment. This background has shaped the political outlooks, philosophies and choices of also the people who own and manage the media. Yet more, importantly, it has shaped the way the media views and treat political developments and built the media's frame of reference.
The ANC in a discussion document "Media In a Democracy" stated: "The media in South Africa is shaped by the same political, social and economic forces which have shaped our society over several decades. At the same time, the media has itself in various ways and at different points contributed to the development of these forces. Under the apartheid state, the media played a leading role in propping up white support for the dominant political ideology. A smaller section of this media played a role at different points in challenging this ideology."
The behaviour of media during the apartheid years left a legacy that has not been eradicated nor properly discussed. At every turn when media were invited to shed light on its past, only a few have risen to the challenge. In the meantime most of the decision makers during these repressive years have continued doing what they were doing then. It is therefore not surprising that sections of the media continue to act in a manner, which resist meaningful transformation of our country. Opponents of transformation regard state structures over which they do not have any influence as a threat to the maintenance of the status quo.
There is therefore a need to continually engage with the media around their attitude towards the democratic movement and government, difficult though this may be. As we challenge the media on its relationship with the progressive movement, care should be exercised that criticism of the media and its particular behaviour should not lead to a situation in which the ANC is perceived as opposed to the freedom of the media in general. The struggle for a media that reflects the diversity inherent in our society should not be confused with an anti-media stance.
The ANC has fought for the freedom of the media and the protections that it enjoys today and as enshrined in the Constitution. The struggle for the transformation of the media should be rooted within a campaign to extend these media freedoms to be enjoyed by all South Africans.
This struggle should not be confused with the criticism that will be leveled against the media from time to time because it is intrusive, embarrassing, irresponsible, disruptive, vulgar, brash and uniformed. Undoubtedly the media is all of the above things some of the time. Indications are that this kind of media behaviour in all countries has led to a decline in the esteem in which the media is held in almost all the democracies.
The ANC must put media reform on the political agenda. This should be aimed at dealing with anti-democratic tendencies within the media system. Media reform should be located within the broader political programme to transform South Africa.
The role of Media in a democratic South Africa
All observers of political developments agree generally that the media plays an important, or perhaps central, role in providing the institutional basis for having an informed and perhaps participating citizenry. In modern politics in as much as there can be no democracy without citizens' active involvement, it can be argued that there can be no democracy without a diverse media capable of engaging the citizens in matters of governance and other social developments.
If a democracy is committed to letting citizens have equal influence over political affairs, it is crucial that all citizens have access to a wide range of well-formulated political positions on the core issues of the day, as well as rigorous debates on activities that cover the political, social, cultural and economic domains. However, unless media is available in an equitable way, it tends to underpin the tendency towards social inequality and the exclusion of some sections of the population from political and economic debates.
In most democracies, it is a given that there exist a variety of media outlets that espouse different political beliefs and support different political positions. During elections media acknowledge political choices by openly declaring support for political parties and their programmes.
Most probably, it is in South Africa alone where a political movement that enjoys almost two thirds of electoral support does not have any media outlet that supports its programmes and functions editorially within it's political ambit.
This state of affairs stands in contrast to the collective body of media that on any given day will take the same positions and choices as the opposition parties who collectively cannot garner more than a third of the vote in elections. Thus the movement does not have effective mechanisms to communicate with the people who have placed it in power.
Yet any criticism of how the media is structured and functions or fails to function, is denounced in the very same media as threats to the freedom of the media. The medium whose overriding responsibility is to promote the airing and reflection of a diversity of views most often when faced with criticism turns to the role of being the suppressor of open discussion.
This approach is not confined to the debate on the role and the behaviour of the media, but cut across major areas of socio-economic activity in which certain viewpoints are deemed by the media to be off-limits. Most of these viewpoints are reflective of the deep-seated desire to transform the South African society from its past. Proponents of these viewpoints are representatives of political parties on the left of the political spectrum, representatives of labour, civic organizations and official representatives of government.
This is how the media in South Africa fails democratic discussion in the country by failing to play its meaningful role in facilitating an open exchange of views by society in transition in order to arrive at informed decision-making by the citizens.
Relationship between media and the organs of society
The ANC in the discussion document entitled Uprooting the Demon of Racism makes an observation that: "The media in South Africa, too reflected the divisions of the past based on race. Since 1994 there has been a tendency for sections of the media to position itself above their social responsibility to inform and to reflect the broad diversity of views in our society."
The ANC discussion document goes on to point out that:"They, (the media) like the opposition, see themselves as the protectors of South Africa's liberty against "the natural inclination of a predominantly black government to dictatorship and corruption"
The above quotes sum up the problematic area of the relationship between the organs of society and the media. The question needs to be asked as to how does the media view and treat the legitimate democratic state that came into being since 1994 and the movement that came to power by popular mandate?
The uneasy relationship between the elected organs and the media is founded on political realities even though some from the media might not be aware or conscious of the fundamental political issues underpinning this uneasy relationship.
There is an overwhelming perception that the media in general has failed to come to terms with the political changes that placed a pre-dominantly black party to lead our country. Within this environment the state and other organs of society are perceived in terms and roles designed for an illegitimate state. Activities of the state and its representative are viewed with suspicion, if not with open hostility. Although subtle, there lurks the ever-present racial stereotyping and compartmentalization of the South African population.
In this environment, there is no space for the representatives of the organs of society to articulate the vision and discuss the opportunities and hurdles that face our transformation. Simply stated, the media has not provided sufficient space for any meaningful dialogue on the challenges and choices that we face as a country.
Most often than not, it is the opponents of the transformation agenda of government who find space to articulate their views. Instead of debate, media is dominated by sound bytes from the political parties that are opposed to the ANC programme. Thus being independent in media circles is seen as being anti-ANC. Proponents of this approach have consistently disguised this hostility to the organs of society and the ANC as no more than the traditional role of the media as a watchdog over the behaviour of state institutions and their representatives.
This so-called watchdog role needs to be interrogated. There is overwhelming evidence of sections of the media treating government with open hostility because of its political programme. A true watchdog would provide space for the correct reporting of events and developments that shape the national life rather than partisan positions. Fundamentally, the media ignores the critical issues of transformation and consequently, does not give space to representatives of societal organs to articulate the choices that confront South Africans.
In its statement Media in a Democracy the ANC observes, "Yet one aspect of the media's role which has proven difficult to effectively debate, not surprisingly given the country's history, is the relationship between the media, government and ruling party."
So long as transformation of the media is off-limits as subject of political debate, it would be difficult to imagine any permanent qualitative change for the better in the relationship between media, government and the ruling party. The media is resisting the discussion on the above-mentioned relationship as a way to protect its partisan role and hide its opposition to the far-reaching changes proposed by the movement.
Mass media and diversity
The considerable progress made and some significant milestones achieved within the communications industry particularly with regard to ownership patterns, the licensing of new media at commercial and community levels; the increase of black and women journalists, editors and managers, as well as the repositioning of the SABC to play a role of being a public broadcaster, driven by a public mandate as opposed to party political role, has to an extent introduced a measure of diversity in ownership, with black empowerment groups and union funds controlling some of the assets.
This has been an important development as it lays the basis for an inclusive media environment that will in time be capable to reflect the diversity in views and interests in our society.
The entry of blacks and women in the ranks of journalists, editors and managers heralds a day when the newsroom will be fully representative of our society. Indeed much work still needs to done to undo the culture and the framework that characterizes the newsrooms.
The changes outlined above are only putative first steps towards the transformation of the media industry. The overwhelming fact is that these changes have not altered the environment and practice of media in any fundamental way. These steps will only bear fruits if they go beyond investments to include effective control and management at both editorial and company levels.
The need for diversity as going beyond ownership is correctly captured in the ANC statement Media in a Democracy. The statement observes: "Ownership alone does not guarantee diversity - there needs to be a diversity of voices in the media. This means the newsrooms of this country need to reflect a diversity of perspectives and experiences, not mere among journalists, but among sub-editors, editors, managers, even photographers. It means they need also to give space to various voices and perspectives. Too often, for example we are provided with expert analysis exclusively from white men, some time white women, occasionally black men and very rarely black women. This is not because black women (or men) lack insight or are unwilling to express their views, but because we have not worked hard enough to break down the racist and sexist intellectual hierarchy in the country. The media need to analyse very critically the race, gender, class and age profile of the people it gives voice to."
In the preceding quote emphasis is placed correctly on those whose viewpoints are quoted and those who are shapers and crafters of the content and public perceptions.
Yet there is another level at which the South African media must be analyzed and contextualised in relationship to diversity. This relates to the mere availability of channels, outlets and titles addressing themselves to issues and developments that affect the various segments of the South African population.
An important aspect of diversity is not just to receive a form of media but importantly a media that informs citizens about issues and matters that are of interest and importance to them; and a medium through which citizens articulate their viewpoints. It is this element of diversity that can be useful in the exercise of the freedom of expression as enshrined in the Constitution.
Despite the many forms and outlets, there still remain a vast majority of South Africans who are not perceived as participants in the media industry as presently constructed. In instances where there is media that will report on developments that are closer to the interests of these South Africans, such media is constrained by financial and other capacity problems to reach and involve these South Africans in a meaningful way. Most of the time such media is only in the form of the African Language Stations of the SABC.
We would like to cite the example of people in rural areas. There should be an acknowledgement as well that black people in the urban areas are not in a fundamentally different position in terms of exposure to a diverse and engaging media from their perspective.
The conclusion based on Future Focus 2000 Research is that if you happen to be in rural areas, black, women or male and prefer to speak a language other than English, you have no media (daily, weekly, monthly) that perceives you as a desirable target market. Despite many channels, outlets and titles, there is no media other than the SABC that can contextualise the socio-political developments from the perspectives and needs of the rural poor.
These South Africans who constitute more than 45% of the South African population rely on one service (SABC language service), the word of mouth and political rallies (when they do occur) for making their informed decisions. These South Africans are in the main the constituency of the ANC. An average of 75% indicated support for the ANC in the Consumer Scope 2000 Research.
There are a number of questions that must be raised from this. The first is how does the ANC keep in contact with this important constituency in order to mobilize and engage in common action with it?
The second question is how does this constituency interact with the democratization process and the many programmes that have been rolled out by government to alleviate its plight when it is faceless and voiceless?
These are important questions that shape the politics of South Africa, what gets to be debated, whose interests are primary and who gets the chance to project their point of view.
Challenges and issues for discussion
The movement as an agent for fundamental social change should take an ongoing interest in the influence of mass media. This is so because the mass media are continuously setting the agenda for trends and events as they occur on the local, national and international levels. In this context, imagine a situation where you have a mass media, which is generally hostile to the progressive transformation agenda. The influence of such hostile mass media to the society would be profoundly negative because of the repetitive nature and accumulative nature of mass communication.
The challenges facing us as we prepare for conference include what we need to do to ensure that we encourage and engage with the media to:-
In addition, how do we encourage the media to avoid utilizing material be it in visual, text or verbal form that may contribute to the promotion and escalation of crime, violence, corruption, indecency, hate speech or civil disorder or what may give offence to ethnic or religious sensitivities.
There may be a necessity to consider formation of communication or civil society foras where media may interact with various formations to sharpen its understanding of various societal issues and also receive feedback on the quality and accuracy of its coverage. This may go a long way in re-instilling lost confidence in the media.
Conclusion
As discussed in the document the problems of media in South Africa are as a result of the same political, social and economic forces, which have shaped our society over several decades. At the same time the media is today an important player influencing the pace and direction of public debate and discussion. This places the media in the political domain.
Creating a better media system should be part of broader social changes. The ANC should place media transformation as part of its political agenda which promotes a free press that puts pride of place political, social, economic; cultural and developmental needs of our society.
The ANC as a vanguard must lead the struggle for a representative media, drawing upon other sectors of society to common action to realize this goal. There would not be changes in media unless there is a popular movement that is going to engage institutions of the media within our society.
What we have to do as the ANC is to organise and encourage various other civil society organs to do so around media issues. Experience from some of the social debates and work done by the HRC for example has shown that there is a tremendous amount of interest. People feel powerless because they never hear about these media issues in a language they can understand and link to their participation in the democratization process. They do not know that they can actually do something about issues in the media.
Government should re-evaluate its working model for media that reaches and draws all segments of our population into the democratic discussion. The advertising commercially driven model has limitations. There needs to be a re-organisation of the media model with a strong emphasis on the public and community tiers that are adequately funded to address the needs of those who are marginalized by the commercial media.
These new channels must deal with the political developments from the point of view and interests of these segments of our population. In the main they must enable the citizens to interact with government at all levels and not only at national level as is the case now. Public and community services in languages spoken in localities should reflect the political organization of the country and move away from the Johannesburg centric deployment of infrastructure.
The ANC needs to build a coalition of all the organised groups in society which already have an interest in media transformation, for example, labor artists, progressive journalists, all of whom are deeply concerned about the state of our media system.
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