Yesterday, I held my ?rst meeting with MECs where we unanimously agreed on certain priority areas over the MTEF period. And this includes fighting the scourge of alcohol and substance abuse that causes immeasurable damage to our country especially the youth; child abuse, neglect and exploitation, which rob our children of the joys of childhood; gender based violence which is an affront to the ideals of the Freedom Charter of building an equal and non-racial and non-sexists society; improving the provision of developmental welfare and community development services to deliver better results for the most vulnerable; enhance our coordination mechanisms, integration, planning, monitoring and evaluation to measure the impact of our interventions.