SPEECH BY LN SISULU MINISTER OF HOUSING AT THE OCCASION OF THE 20th SESSION OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN SETTLEMENT PROGRAMME

SPEECH BY LN SISULU MINISTER OF HOUSING AT THE OCCASION OF THE 20^th SESSION OF THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN SETTLEMENT PROGRAMME

4 April 2005
Nairobi, Kenya

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His Excellency the President of the Governing Council,
Honorable Ministers
The UN-Habitat Executive Director Dr. Anna Tibaijuka
The United Nations Environment Programme Executive Director Mr. Klaus Topfer
Heads of delegations
Country representatives
Distinguished guests
Ladies and Gentlemen:

I have been sufficiently presumptuous to seek to speak not only on behalf of South Africa but also on behalf for the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development. Having been thrust into the position of Chair of the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development I am therefore taking upon myself a collective mantle of speaking on the common position that African Ministers agreed to.

From our perspective we meet here during an auspicious time for us, for we have finally arrived at a comfortable place and have created an environment where we can effectively engage on the issues that have forever defined us, as belonging to a different era.

A few decades ago, we who are poor, we who are generally stood accused of the absence of leadership ,of lacking political will, and at worst, harbouring dictatorial traditions, we who in the economic forums of the worlds had often been accused of rejecting sound policy advice, came to conclusions that because of the poor circumstances of the countries that we lead, the time for Africa in the 21^st Century had come. Determined to be what the South African patriot Robert Sobukwe had called the ‘the first glimmers of a new dawn’ we gathered in 2001 to transform the Organization of African Unity into the African Union so that collectively we could demonstrate the political will and commitment to establish good governance practices on the continent. Very swiftly all other benchmarks of progress fell into place. And now the Pan African Parliament sitting in Johannesburg celebrates its first anniversary. Mr President the foundations are in place.

The African Union marked a very important beginning for us. These are the beginnings of a collective effort to ensure that we can deal with the plight of the continent. Established in Durban it marked the opening of a historic epoch, which we as African Ministers have sought to consolidate and take forward. I regard myself as very fortunate indeed that I was the midwife of this precocious child that we call the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development. Born of two women, that on its own should be some indication of how the world has changed. The two women in this case were the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT and the AU Commissioner for Social development.

Durban will forever be etched in our memories as an antecedent and a trail-blaser of the good that will finally come from Africa for it was in this very place that we marked the final end of colonialism and asserted that Africa’s time had come. This is where we began to roll back the image of us as an unfolding tragedy and replaced it with a free and determined people who take charge of their collective destiny.

Through interventions like the New Partnership for Africa’s Development we intend to systemically work together to combine our strengths to deal with our weaknesses. Further, in focusing on new relations through the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, Africa intended to work to ensure that a partnership with the developed world brings the outcomes that are necessary to accelerate and scale up implementation.

Our efforts in this regard have firmly put the plight of the continent on the global agenda. We are convinced that we are now at the forefront of attempts to focus world attention on the issues of poverty. We are convinced that for us, who have struggled for justice and equality, this is our new struggle – the struggle against poverty – a clear and present menace which as the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, Dr. Tibaijuka, so eloquently described this morning and which we can only ignore at our peril.

Within the framework of the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Development an institutional mechanism for consultation and a focal point to link development strategies as well as international processes for the sustainable development of Africa’s urban environment.was established. We have taken advantage of the space that has opened for Africa’s development to adopt a common African position on Africa’s urban challenges driven by the conviction that Africa’s progress in the new Century can no longer continue to be at the margins of the developed world. We recognised further that in experiencing rapid urbanization that is reflected by an annual average rate of 4.0% - almost two times faster than Latin America and Asia – Africa needs solutions that will have immediate and large-scale impact in its urban environment. High rates of unemployment, housing and service provisions that are not keeping pace with household formations provide the case for immediate and effective interventions, as, ironically it is these very conditions that hold back private and foreign direct investment that countries in Africa critically need to supplement public investment and thereby stimulate growth and eradicate poverty.

Accordingly, we as African Ministers adopted an enhanced framework of implementation to promote consistent and collective approaches to urban development. Particular issues that the document highlights is access to land, the mobilization of domestic resources to fund the development of human settlements, and external assistance to resolve the issue of debt which is critical in enabling African countries to meet the targets of the Millennium Development Goals. In addition, the framework calls for the creation of a fund dedicated to facilitating the establishment of human settlements in Africa, one that is responsive to the needs of each country and one that will enable the creation of specific capacity building measures. We call on all interested parties to look kindly on this endeavour. Further, we plead for consistency by the international community in dealing with matters of development. We highlight in this regard the experiences of Europe in the post-war period including the recent European Integration Programme, which currently is successfully integrating some members of the Europe Union who joined recently with relatively high rates of poverty. With again the active support of countries such as the United States of America the East Asian Growth and Development Plan was successful in the 1970’s to transform East Asia into what the world now recognizes as an ‘economic miracle’.

As African Ministers we would like to ensure that our urban environments do create environments in Africa where markets work for purposes of urban development. We would want to ensure that sustainable development takes place and that Africa in the long-term achieves self-sufficiency. These are the goals to which we have committed our political will.

I would like to commend the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Development to this forum as the focal point in Africa in respect of issues concerning urban development and human settlements. I would also like to commend the enhanced framework of implementation as the common African position to the deliberations that will be taking place at this forum.

We, in Africa are at one with the Dr. Anna Tibaijuka’s call this morning that the target of 100 million slum dwellers is far too modest especially if measured against the huge challenge we have. In fact at the last count this target accounted for 10% of the slum population in the world, and growing. In our case it is estimated that our annual population grows at an alarming rate of 10.2% percent whilst our poverty levels increased to 46% by 2001 in terms of global figures. When you consider that in next 30 years Africa's population will have doubled from 888 million in 2005 to 1,77 billion and that in the same period the urban population will have increased from 353 million to 748 million at the rate of 4 to 5 percent, and consider further that 71.9% of this urban population currently lives in slums then you will understand that 10% doesn’t even begin to make a dent; and we do not even calculate what percentage of that is allocated to Africa. Therefore, on behalf of the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development, we who have been dispossessed and so long been caught up in the spiral of poverty, degradation and marginalization, ask you to consider that the present targets are so hopelessly uninspired that they will not change the plight of our continent and bring tangible relief to our people.

We therefore support Dr. Anna Tibaijuka's decision that at least 50% of the lives of the people slums are made better. Distinguished delegates, is this too much to ask for people who look up to us to give them the most basic requirement that distinguishes us as homosapiens from other species in the world.

Lastly, we resolved to raise the issue of poverty in relation to housing needs of our people to ensure that it is at the to top international agenda on development. For how else does one measure development except if it makes an impact to those who are most in need. We have just seen the reports of the work of the Commission and we are certain that much of its driving forced comes from the Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, Dr. Anna Tibaijuka.As an added bonus to our efforts we applaud the outcomes of the Blair Commission. We know that we are well represented and that one of our major goals – raising the profile of human settlements in Africa – is in good hands.

Finally, South Africa is privileged to have been elected to lead the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Development as Chair, for the next two years. It was a vote of confidence in us and has boosted our resolve that we can improve the lives of 100% of our slum dwellers by the year 2014. We believe that this is the right thing to do, and we therefore call on your support for this plan.

I thank you.