Chairperson, members of the National Assembly, hon members of the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Co-operation and the Select Committee on Trade and International Relations, members of the diplomatic corps, Acting UN Resident Representative, Dr Stella Anyangwe, comrades and friends, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen and fellow South Africans, in his state of the nation address, President Zuma identified the priorities of our government.
In that context, our President also articulated a vision of South Africa's role, taking cognisance of the fact that working together with the rest of the world we can do more to bring about global peace and prosperity. Our mandate as the Department of International Relations and Co-operation is to contribute to the realisation of this agenda.
I table this Budget Vote two days after the 33rd anniversary of June 16, 1976. Its heroes and heroines were inspired, amongst other things, by the vision of the Freedom Charter, whose 54th anniversary we will celebrate next week. This was motivated by what the Freedom Charter declared: "There shall be peace and friendship!" Thus, the presentation I make before you today is an attempt to contribute towards the realisation of this vision of the Freedom Charter.
Today we present the budget of the Department of International Relations and Co-operation. This important decision of our government to change the name of the department speaks of the need for us to focus on partnerships and sustainable relations that will advance the interests of our country, contribute to the development of Africa and make the world a better place.
We have made a commitment that this will also be manifested soon through the creation of the SA Development Partnership Agency, SADPA. Work has started towards the realisation of this goal. We want the creation of this agency to take our work on development co-operation to greater heights in terms of its focus and its depth.
It is our firm conviction that South Africa's destiny is inextricably linked to our mother continent, and that working together with the sister people of the continent we will contribute towards a better Africa and a better world. Thus, as we begin this term of our government, we are called upon to redouble our efforts to seek peace, security and development for Africa. We believe that these are interlinked as we cannot hope for development without peace and security.
Ke ka gobane le?ako la hloka thobela ke mojano. Ebile ntlo ya lerole ga e tswale kgo?i. [This is because people take advantage if there is no established authority. And people don't think highly of people who fight all the time, or those who don't work together.]
We therefore wish to take this opportunity to stress the following pillars for our engagement with Africa.
The first is the strengthening of our regional integration. From the experience of other regions of the world, we have witnessed the benefits that come from strong regional integration where successful regional integration has been closely associated with peace and development, amongst other things. We seek the same for our beloved mother continent. It is therefore imperative that we focus on the development and strengthening of SADC and the AU. Regional economic communities such as SADC are also key pillars for the broader continental integration. The AU cannot be strong if Africa's regional economic communities are weak. It is this perspective that forces us to work for greater cohesion and a stronger economic integration in our region. We have made advances in this regard, as evident from the launch of the SADC Free Trade Area in South Africa last year.
Of course, we know that the path to get into a fuller integration is not going to be smooth and easy. The challenge we are confronted with at the moment is the Economic Partnership Agreements, EPAs, that some of our regional members have signed with the European Union. We will continue to engage with EU countries together with countries in our region to see if we cannot focus on forging stronger economic integration rather than dividing ourselves through these EPAs.
We shall, on the other hand, continue to work with the people of Zimbabwe on the full implementation of the Global Political Agreement. We pledge to step up efforts to promote bilateral co-operation between our two countries. We also call upon the international community to lift sanctions and fully engage the government of Zimbabwe and help respond to the calls for help from the people of Zimbabwe to rebuild their country.
As SADC, we are also seized with the situation and challenges faced by our sister country, Madagascar. Tomorrow South Africa, together with the SADC Organ, will host the Troika, which is made up of Swaziland, Mozambique and Angola. This will be followed by an extraordinary summit on 20 June 2009, specifically to focus on how to restore durable peace in Madagascar.
At a continental level, we will continue to be fully engaged in the strengthening of the AU. We are prioritising our contribution to the important discussion on the question of the union government. This debate is drawn from the long-standing vision of some of our forebears like Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and others, who wished to see a deeper unity on our continent. These forebears believed that the strength of Africa lay in our unity.
Tau t?a hloka seboka di ?itwa ke nare e hlot?a. [We cannot achieve anything if we are divided.] It therefore behoves our generation to continue on the path of our forebears to work together to fight the scourge of poverty and underdevelopment on our continent.
We will also seek to enhance the work we have started in bringing closer alignment between SADC, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, Comesa, and the East African Community, EAC.
The stabilisation of our continent needs to be anchored in visible programmes of socioeconomic development. In this regard, we recognise that Nepad remains a key mechanism for the achievement of this socioeconomic development. Nepad programmes on infrastructure and food security, amongst other things, remain a priority for South Africa and African countries. Therefore, it is for this reason that we believe the implementation of Nepad programmes at all levels needs to be enhanced.
The second pillar for our African Agenda is to support peace, security, stability and postconflict reconstruction initiatives. We know from our own experience that the achievement of peace and stability can be a painstaking effort requiring patience and perseverance. However, we also know the dividends that come with peace. It is this understanding that has informed our co-operation with the sister countries of DRC, Burundi, Sudan, Comoros, Zimbabwe, Cote d'Ivoire and many others, as they seek to bring peace to their own countries. The peace dividend that all these countries seek is economic growth and development. We are enjoined to play our role in continuing with this important work.
South African men and women continue to serve in peacekeeping missions in various parts of our continent. We are proud of the role these patriots play. Thus we need to ensure that operations of the SADC Brigade, the strengthening of the regional peacekeeping training centre in Harare and the launch of the regional early warning centre in Gaborone also receive our focus.
The third pillar of our continental strategy is the strengthening of bilateral political and socioeconomic relations with countries on our continent. We enjoy strong bilateral relations with all the countries of the African continent. Through these partnerships, we wish to foster stronger political relations, people-to-people solidarity, trade, investments and tourism as we integrate our people. The department is doing an audit of these partnerships in order to identify ways in which we can strengthen them, focusing particularly on interventions necessary to promote intra-African trade in mutually beneficial and sustainable ways.
The evolution of our international relations policy has ushered in an era of trilateral co-operation, whose practical expression is also found in the developmental projects that South Africa is undertaking in various countries. We have several projects we are undertaking in third countries like Guinea-Conakry and Vietnam. These are very noble projects. We have the project of rice production for the population of Guinea-Conakry, and many others, that we are doing with India-Brazil-South Africa, Ibsa, on other parts of the continent, including the Cuban Medical Brigade in Mali.
Of significance in 2009 is that South Africa and Nigeria will celebrate 10 years of our diplomatic relations. This is an important opportunity for us to evaluate the road travelled so far and seek together how we continue to strengthen these very important relations. There can be no lasting peace on the African continent as long as the people of Western Sahara continue to suffer and live in conditions of occupation. We are convinced that urgent steps should be taken to cease colonisation in this sister country in line with UN processes.
As we seek more co-operation and the integration of our continent, we are convinced that Africa cannot only be defined by geography, but that we should also come together around a set of values that define our humanity. For this reason, the promotion of democracy, the respect for human rights and the improvement of governance are vital for our success as a continent. Indeed, we see progress being registered in all these areas throughout the continent.
In our own region, South Africa and Malawi have just concluded very successful democratic elections. These values are also supported by the principles of the AU, such as the continued rejection of unconstitutional changes of power. In this regard, another important structure on which we should focus is the African Peer Review Mechanism, APRM. We will continue to popularise these progressive values to enhance the wellbeing of our continent.
During his address, the President of the country reiterated a need to work together with countries of the South, emphasising the importance of South- South co-operation. Our commitment to South-South co-operation is not only driven by our need to pursue stronger political relations with countries of the South, but by also focusing these relations towards advancing our domestic priorities.
This is about expanding the horizons of opportunities for our country. As we do this, we are also aware that there is growing recognition that emerging economies of the South will be key catalysts of global growth as we emerge from the current financial and economic crisis. We have to seek out and grasp opportunities that these countries of the South offer to our country.
We will be strengthening and consolidating our relations with the countries of Ibsa. In October 2009, we will participate in the 4th Ibsa Summit in Brazil. We will be working towards the implementation of the 20 bilateral agreements already signed in this trilateral initiative. Through Ibsa, we plan to further increase the levels of trade to the target of US$25 billion by the year 2015 and to finalise modalities for Ibsa outreach to other third countries.
We also have very special relationships with the countries of Ibsa, in particular India and Brazil. With India we share strong historical ties, spanning every stage of the evolution of the modern South Africa through the 20th century. Ours has been a relationship steeped in politics and struggle - satyagraha and ahimsa.
That is why we wish to congratulate the people of India for the manner in which they conducted their recently concluded elections, thereby once again confirming and entrenching the place of India as the largest democracy on earth. We owe it to our forebears to continue to enhance these very important relations. India also continues to work with us as we strive to train our youth for the challenges we have in skilling our youth for modern economy. We once again want to say to India, "Dhanyavad". ["Thank you".]
Bilateral trade with Brazil, on the other hand, is also on the increase. Of course we are quite aware of the structural imbalances in the current trade with Brazil. It is tilting very much in their favour and it is for us to sit back and see how we correct this. But Brazil, on the other hand, has the largest concentration of Africans second only to Nigeria. It is a logical partner of our continent. We are encouraged by the increasing realisation of this fact by government and the people of Brazil.
Beyond Ibsa, we are broadening our political and economic relations with countries of the South in general - Asia, Middle East and Latin America. It is from these expanding relations that South Africa seeks also to leverage support for our domestic priorities. For us to emerge out of these challenges of the global economic meltdown, we think we should look to south. Already some of the bigger investments in South Africa come from countries of the South.
We have also formed structured, bilateral relations using joint commissions with these countries, particularly Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The countries of the Middle East in particular, in spite of the global economic crisis, continue to be a source of foreign direct investments, FDI, which we can access by leveraging huge resources in their sovereign wealth funds.
In 2008 we completed a successful celebration of our diplomatic relations with China. We will continue to engage with this very important partner to enhance both our political and economic ties. We will also be participating in the Shanghai Expo that will be taking place next year.
At the political level, our relations with countries of the South are critical. In addressing some of the global challenges we face today, we will continue to enhance these ties. Because of this reason and because of some historical reasons, we will also be attending the nonaligned summit in Egypt in July this year. South Africa will send a strong delegation to continue to work with the Non-Aligned Movement to seek to enhance political solidarity with countries of the South for the resolution of challenges faced by the world today. We shall do the same with the Group of 77 countries.
The second Africa-South America Summit is to be hosted by Venezuela in September 2009, which will also be a key event in the context of our pursuit of South-South co-operation. The summit aims to expand knowledge amongst countries of South America and Africa and to continue to work together to see how together we can work towards the alleviation of poverty in our countries and encourage the exchange of information and experiences, as well as work collectively on matters of mutual interest, especially in the fields of sustainable development, and exchange the technological know- how in science, technology and culture.
South Africa remains extremely concerned with the lack of progress in the Middle East peace process. We would want to reiterate, once again, that we think the solution to this lies in the two-state solutions. We are also encouraged by the statements made by President Barack Obama and also his overtures to the two-state solutions, thus reiterating our long held view on the correctness of this approach.
We've also stated the importance that our government attaches to our relations with the developed countries of the North. We believe that we remain a key catalyst, if not a bridge, between North and South. In September 2009, we will host the South Africa-European Union Summit. This is the second summit since the launch of the strategic partnership between the EU and South Africa. It is important that our European partners should support the development focus of our regional integration. Therefore, we'll make use of this opportunity to reiterate our concerns around the Economic Partnership Agreement processes. This year marks the centenary relations celebration with Japan. This affords us an opportunity to reflect on how to better focus on our partnership in trade, development and investment. We shall continue to strengthen our bilateral relations with Russia through our structured co- ordination framework of Itec.
Our bilateral relations with North America and the US, in particular, is key. In this regard we will continue to explore ways of deepening the political relations between South Africa and the US. We have noted the various policy pronouncements by the new administration in which they express an intention to engage with the world, ourselves in South Africa, but also with the challenges facing the people of Zimbabwe. South Africa welcomes this trajectory.
Our foreign policy will always be informed by our strong belief in the multilateral systems of global governance. It has been through the multilateral system that we have always come together to address the many challenges that confront the world today. At no time has this co-operation under the multilateral system been more important than it is today. Nations of the world have to come together to deal with the effects of the global financial crisis. We have to take action with others to address climate change. Indeed, these are among the urgent priorities that we will address this year in our multilateral engagements.
We shall do so in all the other forums we will be attending, including the G20. The G20 Summit taking place in September hopefully will be an occasion of taking stock of progress in implementation of all these processes.
We also support the actions taken by the UN to address the financial crisis. We believe that the UN will allow all other nations of the world, who are not necessarily members or part of G20, also to have an avenue to participate and voice their opinions on the global crisis.
The international community will gather in Copenhagen in December 2009 to look at steps that need to be taken to address climate change. We will participate vociferously in this because we believe that Copenhagen should be able to address the concerns of our people. We will have an opportunity to address these issues through an engagement also with the G8 Summit taking place during the course of this year.
South Africa has been a member of the UN Security Council. We have alluded to all these other important organisations that we are members of where we'll be enhancing South Africa's international stature.
We want to take this opportunity to say that we'll continue to enhance our diplomatic work abroad, depending on the men and women our diplomats posted around the world, to work for a better South Africa.
We will participate vociferously in enhancing and propagating Mandela Day and all our missions will take a lead in propagating this day and doing something good for humanity on that particular day.
I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to both my predecessors, the late Minister Nzo and Minister Dlamini-Zuma for the sterling work they did in strengthening and putting down good foundations for our country around the world.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank my two deputies, hon Ebrahim Ebrahim and Sue van der Merwe, the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Co-operation, hon Gamede, the director- general and all the teams, International Relations and Co-operation and, in particular, my family.
I would like to make a call to nonstate actors - all South Africans, business analysts and journalists - to join us in building "Brand South Africa" outside South Africa. Working together with all our people, we can do more. I therefore present our budget as tabled. Thank you.