Address by executive mayor Zintle Peter
Aspects of Swedish-South Africa Development Co-operation Urban Programme from a Political Point of View

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and comrades.

I have been allocated fifteen minutes, Programme Director, to share some thoughts on the co-operation between Sweden and South Africa from a political point of view, so I hope that our many important delegates here today will forgive me for dispensing with the niceties of introductory protocol.

In fact, I think it is more suitable in any event to address you all as comrades, because I know that whether you are Swedish or South African, you are here today because you have a passion for the development of our country and our continent, because you are an activist for the upliftment of those whose human potential has not yet been fully realized, and because you share a solidarity for the cause of a South Africa and an Africa that can occupy its rightful place as a leading actor in the community of nations. To me, that means that you are all comrades, and I greet you as such.

While most of the presentations during this conference are technical, I want to make a few brief points from a political perspective. I want to firstly reflect on where we have come from as partners; I want to reflect on the character of our partnership; I want to say something about the content of our co-operation insofar as it has been built around the foundation of sustainable development; and I want to conclude by saying a few words about possible future scenarios and risks.

It is right to remind ourselves, in looking back on the last decade or so of development co-operation between our countries, of the fact that before some of us were born, ordinary people in Sweden took the international lead in mobilizing opposition to the injustices of apartheid in South Africa. From before 1960, people in Sweden were saying, "This is a system that is a crime against the humanity of people, and we want to play our part in supporting its victims, and also we want to do whatever we can to assist them to mobilize the world to stand together in struggling for its end."

This support was expressed over the years in direct and indirect support for the Anti-apartheid Movement and the ANC in exile both from the Swedish government and the non-governmental sector, together with other Scandinavian countries. We know that some who are sitting in this room were instrumental in that support over the decades, and South Africa will always be grateful to you for your moral and material support for the cause of liberation. It was for good reason that the first country that Nelson Mandela chose to visit after his release in 1990, was Sweden.

The nature of that support began naturally to evolve after 1990 with the unbanning of the ANC, through South Africa’s transition until a democratic government was in place. Following 1994 and continuing through 2000, with the challenge of transforming local governments coming to the fore, South Africa and Sweden have jointly developed a country support strategy based on South Africa’s priorities and our own strategic approach to poverty mitigation and reduction.

Now we have reached a juncture where this developmental partnership is evolving once again, is entering a new phase based on the view that South Africa has achieved much during its transition and has established a degree of political stability and self-sufficiency, has founded the systems necessary to sustain a modern democracy, and has taken significant steps forward in terms of social welfare and economic success.

This is of course true: notwithstanding the destructive criticism that the government is often subjected to from within our own country, it is a fact that our policies since 1994 have salvaged a lot from the ruins of the economy that were handed to us, and have enabled us to create the most extensive system of assistance to the poor that exists in the developing world.

But it will also remain true that South Africa is still undergoing transition and transformation – evident for example in a high degree of social and economic polarization – and that we cannot rest on our many successes and presume that our institutions will necessarily take care of themselves.

There are numerous examples from our own continent and beyond of countries which have regressed from bread-baskets to basket-cases within a generation. So we know that we must remain vigilant and appreciate the co-operation of our friends and allies in consolidating the values of what we have come to call the national democratic revolution.

What we appreciate particularly about our developmental co-operation with Sweden is that Sweden did not say, "We will support you in these areas", but rather said, "Where do you need support?" It has therefore been a co-operation based not on paternalism but on the principle of a partnership of equals, with both parties believing that their mutual interests and values could be advanced through processes of shared learning and reciprocity. It has also been a partnership not dependent on cynical calculation of what one could gain in return, politically or economically.

Most of all, it has been a partnership in which the challenge to alleviate and eradicate poverty faced by South Africa at local level in its cities and towns as the pace of urbanization has increased, has been targeted head-on through the kind of programmes that have been supported, and through the principles of people-centred and sustainable development that have underpinned South Africa’s post-apartheid planning.

For the past eight years, Buffalo City has been fortunate to have benefited in many ways from the kind of post-industrial logic that informs Swedish development and urban planning. It is a logic that recognizes the need to balance the tensions between social, environmental and economic agendas when planning for the future of our human community. It is a logic that sees that we only have one world that we cannot replace if we harm it, and that the harm that we do in the north or the west profoundly affects the interests of the south and the east as well.

It is a logic that sees that we are being irresponsible in pursuing our own selfish needs and wants if we do not consider our children’s and our grandchildren’s needs as well.

It is a logic that says that a sustainable future for our world cannot be secured through an international order that is dominated by one centre of political gravity, to the extent that the values and the interests and concerns of whole continents must play a subordinate role to a unilateral actor. In this regard the shared values and mutual interests of Sweden and South Africa have formed a solid basis for co-operation, both on matters of African development as well as the evolving international order.

And it is a logic that says that if we want to build a new and inclusive future for our cities and our country and our world, then people must come first in the developmental equation, because it is the needs and interests of real people that are required to be met whether talking of the design of a local town or an international order.

This is a legacy that will remain with our beneficiary municipalities that are represented here, for a long time to come. It is a legacy that is reflected in Buffalo City’s vision of being a "people-centred place of opportunity where the basic needs of all are met in a safe, healthy and sustainable environment." And it is a legacy that will remain in the friendships that have been formed and will hopefully continue irrespective of shifting political winds.

I said at Tor Eriksson’s farewell a few months ago that our development co-operation with Sida has had far more successes than failures over the past eight years – in fact, the failures were very few, and I would like to believe that a person who has never failed in anything has never achieved anything. I said also that the past eight years have seen the evolution of Buffalo City into a local authority that has the vision, the commitment, the capacity and the capability to manage the sustainable development of its people and its communities.

Of course, that does not mean that there are no risks. While we have a solid base of integrated and sectoral development frameworks, and while we have a well-established twinning partnership with Gävle with promising opportunities, I am keenly aware that we do face challenges to sustain the momentum of these endeavours and to ensure the continuity of the good work that has been done.

My concluding observation, therefore, is that the challenge of sustaining meaningful developmental partnerships between the north and the south cannot ignore the fact that serious resources are required in order to ensure tangible results, and that there still remains a significant imbalance in the resources available to our respective communities to sustain our co-operation activities.

As the basis for our Sida-supported programmes evolves into a new phase, this will remain the single biggest concern in making sure that the future of our valued partnership will remain as strong and productive as the past has been.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.

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