SPEECH BY MINISTER JEFF RADEBE, MINISTER IN THE PRESIDENCY FOR PLANNING, MONITORING AND EVALUATION, CHAIRPERSON OF THE NATIONAL PLANNING COMMISSION, ON THE OCASSION OF THE UNDP REGIONAL WORKSHOP ON INTEGRATING SDGs AND AGENDA 2063 INTO NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS, 15 – 16 JUNE 2016, SANDTON, SOUTH AFRICA
As I welcome you to our country in this very cold winter day, allow me also to express my gratitude for your kind invite to participate in this very important programme affecting the people of the African continent.
I would also like to thank the organisers of this workshop, UNDP, and the support they are providing to the Sub-Saharan Region as we think and work through the ‘domestication’ of the SDGs and Agenda 2063 in our various national development plans and strategies.
This is an important discussion and it is taking place, exactly ten months, after the world adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) during the 70th United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2015. It is exactly three years since the Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) laid down the vision for the “Africa they want” during the Summit in May 2013. The two development Agendas are very important for the World, the African continent, the Sub-Saharan Region and each country, including South Africa in dealing with the development challenges that we are faced with. In our respective countries, we also have national development plans, development strategies and programmes with set goals and targets that we would like to meet to achieve a decent standard of life for our citizens. At the core of all these is the urgency to address economic, social and environmental issues, to improve the lives of our people. They all seek to accelerate the implementation of past and existing global and continental initiatives for growth and sustainable development, eliminate poverty and reduce inequality and promote economic growth.
It is indeed important that both the global and continental agendas speak to each other for synergy. Hypothetically, for someone in space outside our planet would be bemused if we were to have agendas that speak to the same issues of development but fail to speak to each other. Therefore these twin development agendas, the SGD’s and Agenda 2063, are not about the UN and the AU respectively, but the common desire to emancipate the people of the continent and the world from poverty, economic marginalisation and inequality.
That is why this workshop is of paramount importance as we seek to make sense of the mandates posed in the form of both the SDG’s and Agenda 2063. Further compounding the matter is that each country where these twin development programmes must ultimately find footing actually have various national development agendas. In our instance in South Africa’s we have the National Development Plan, (NDP).
The world is unanimous on the urgency to collectively deal with hunger, malnutrition, poverty, unemployment, disease, climate change, low agricultural productivity, degraded ecosystems and social inequity challenges.
Through Agenda 2063, we in the African continent committed ourselves that by 2063, African countries will be amongst the best performers in global quality of life measures. This will be attained through strategies of inclusive growth, job creation, increasing agricultural production; investments in science, technology, research and innovation; gender equality, youth empowerment and the provision of basic services including health, nutrition, education, shelter, water and sanitation.
In South Africa, as I have already indicated that it must be the case in many of our countries, we have in 2012, adopted the National Development Plan, which spells out the goals we want to achieve as a country by 2030.
Thus, all of us realise that we need to plan ahead, set goals and targets and work towards achieving these goals if we are to make the world a better place for all its citizens.
The challenge that remains for all of us now is how we achieve the goals set in both Agenda 2030 and Agenda 2063, as well as in our own country development plans and strategies, taking into account the different national realities, capacities and levels of development and national policies and priorities.
This is the biggest challenge we face. It is exacerbated by a number of factors, and I would argue that one of these critical challenges is the fact that both African countries and development partner countries are going through a period of low economic growth, which reduces the amount of resources that is available for governments to spend. Some of the contributory constraining factors are:
· Low commodity prices: The World Bank estimates that commodity prices have fallen by on average 45% from their 2011 peak. This is due mainly to a deceleration in demand from large emerging economies especially China. Many developing countries depend on commodity exports for government revenue.
· The outlook for Official Development Assistance (ODA) is challenging: ODA remains the largest single source of external financial flows to Africa’s low-income countries. ODA to Africa was estimated at $55.2 billion in 2014, marginally lower than the $55.8 billion recorded in 2013.
· Many OECD development partner countries are facing a challenging economic outlook. The IMF expects the recovery of the Eurozone to be subdued as this region will grow by 1.7% in 2016. This would likely affect their fiscal transfers to developing countries in the form of Official Development Assistance (ODA). In addition, their focus would be on implementing measures that would promote and stimulate economic growth in their own economies. They would then tend to become more inward oriented and focused.
Against this background, how should Africa Agenda 2063 and SDG’s be domesticated and implemented?
But this does not mean we should sit back and complain about resource constraints.
The first goal is that there should be alignment between the respective national initiative, the continental initiative and the global initiative.
The reality that we all face is that given the challenging external financing and economic conditions, African countries must increase their reliance on domestic resources to finance the SDGs and the Africa 2063 Agendas, as well as their respective development plans and strategies.
Fortunately, the goals and targets covered by the SDGs and Africa 2063 show a significant amount of overlap and therefore the focus should be on coordination within countries and among continental development institutions.
In South Africa, as I believe will be the case with many of other African countries, there is a significant overlap between the goals and targets of the SDGs and Agenda 2063 with the goals and targets of the National Development Plan.
Hence the national development plans and policies of developing countries should shape the nature of the domestication of the Africa Agenda 2063 and SDGs. To deliver on the SDGs, Agenda 2063, and our respective national priorities and other global and continental obligations I would argue, ladies and gentlemen, that some of the principles and things to do are, to mention a few:
• We need to coordinate and collaborate; establish and strengthen partnerships that blends the strengths of governments, private sector, non-profit organisations; the scientific community, academia, philanthropy and foundations, parliaments, local authorities, volunteers and other stakeholders
• We need to mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to complement the efforts of governments
• We need to as much as we possibly can, work within the current institutions and not establish new one
• Each country should decide for themselves what their reform priorities are – some issues are more priorities for SA, but may not be priority for other African countries and vice versa
• Initiatives that have started in support of implementation of the various plans and strategies within countries should continue and be supported
• Our national development targets and indicators have been rationalised to improve the quality of national reporting
We need to build on the experiences learned from the MDGs process, strengthen and broaden our efforts based on these lessons. To make reference to a few examples, lessons from the MDGs show the following:
• Commitment to the goals and the importance of effective policy implementation
• Citizens’ engagement in policy development
• State capacity
• Horizontal, inter-sectoral coordination -
• Equality and disaggregated data
The important point and lesson from the MDGs, is that when we say there is alignment between the various initiatives and Agendas, we must be careful not to be complacent and relax. More work is needed to support and guide implementation. More emphasis should be put on the quality of services measures, than access and quantity. Alongside that is the challenge to define quality indicators.
In addition, as the continent, we have had a number of discussions about achievement of the different Agendas. For example, the outcomes of the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda outline the concrete policies and actions that could be taken. These include: “strengthening public policies, dealing with regulatory frameworks and finance at all levels, unlocking the transformative potential of people and the private sector, and incentivizing changes in financing as well as consumption and production patterns to support sustainable development”.
The Addis Ababa Action Agenda further sums it all up when it indicates that, “multi-stakeholder partnerships and the resources, knowledge and ingenuity of the private sector, civil society, the scientific community, academia, philanthropy and foundations, parliaments, local authorities, volunteers and other stakeholders will be important to mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, complement the efforts of governments, and support the achievement of the SDG”.
From government’s side, we need commitment to develop relevant policies, strengthen regulatory framework where necessary in order to better align private sector incentives with public goals. There is further need for commitment to promote and create enabling domestic and international conditions for inclusive and sustainable private sector investment that entails transparent and stable rules and standards, free and fair competition that is conducive to achieving national development policies.
Equally important is the need to urgently address communication issues with respect to transition from MDGs, emphasise the alignment of the different Agendas and focus on implementation and domestication. Most ordinary people still talk about the MDGs, we have not brought them on board with respect to the transition from MDGs to SDGs. Ordinary citizens are critical players in achievement of the goals of the different Agendas.
We need to take consultations within government (National, Provincial, and Local), non-governmental organisations, the private sectors and civil societies, and engage on domestication of the SDGs and Agenda 2063. Our efforts should be premised on empowering all stakeholders to contribute to the collective effort
The focus from now on is to ensure that over the next 15 years, we work together nationally, regionally and globally in order to deliver on the agreed Sustainable Development Goals. Mainly, the focus is on the means of implementation. As the process of implementation progresses, there will be follow-up and reviews that will need to be conducted in order to understand where countries are at. This is a way in which governments will account and take stock of progress. South Africa supports the follow-up and review process through the High-level Political Forum of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
There is an action call that businesses should apply their creativity and innovation toward solving sustainable development challenges, such as, investing in areas critical to sustainable development, and to shift to more sustainable consumption and production patterns.
There is recognition that private international capital flows, particularly foreign direct investment (FDI), along with a stable international financial system, are vital complements to national development efforts. However, there are concerns that investment gaps in key sectors for sustainable development still exist. FDI is concentrated in a few sectors in many developing countries and often bypasses countries most in need, and international capital flows are often short-term oriented.
The commitment to deal with poverty and hunger; to combat inequality; to build a peaceful, just and inclusive society; to achieve gender equality, to ensure inclusive and equitable quality of education; to address climate change; to create conditions for sustainable, inclusive and sustained economic growth, shared prosperity and decent work for all.
We have to thank UNDP Africa for organising the sub-regional workshops, covering West and Central African countries and East and Southern African countries respectively. We believe this is an important step in raising awareness on the global and continental frameworks and Agendas. We should take advantage of the set of tools and approaches that the United Nations Development Group/System has developed to support regional institutions and countries to mainstream the two agendas into development plans and to promote policy coherence for ensuring progress towards the goals.
In South Africa, I am proud to say that we are already working with the UNDP on a programme that supports the implementation of the NDP. On Friday the 17th June, my Department, in partnership with UNDP and other partners will be hosting a debate on this very topic of aligning SDGs to the NDP, towards the domestication of the SDGs in South Africa. But there is a lot more work that we are doing in with other partners, including the private sector in implementation of the NDP.
We are happy to share lessons and we are also looking forward to learning lessons from our counterparts in the region as we pursue this work.
Ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2063 does not depend just on government. It needs a multidimensional approach that needs different stakeholders, skills and expertise. But most of all, nothing could be achieved without the necessary resources. Governments, internationally and within the African continent, are committed to the Sustainable Development Goals, Agenda 2063 and looking forward to forging the global partnerships needed to realise the goals.
Best wishes with your workshop and deliberations.
“Together we can do more”.
“I THANK YOU”
