BY OUPA LEHULERE
JOHANNESBURG — South African "civil society" organisations took their first major step towards organising for the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. During three days of intense debates, held September 26-28, the Civil Society Indaba was launched at a meeting near Bredell, outside Johannesburg.
In September 2002, South Africa will host what is by far the largest and the most important conference within the United Nations system. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) will review progress towards the implementation of the resolutions made 10 years earlier at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
The Earth Summit, officially known as the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, was convened by the UN in order to deal with the social and environmental crisis that had been developing over the last few decades.
According to a 1987 report commissioned by the UN, poverty in the South and excessive consumption in the North were leading to serious threats to the environment. The report, Our Common Future, called for a development path that "met the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs".
The Indaba met to deliberate on how far South Africa and the world has moved towards a sustainable development path, and to begin a process of developing perspectives on how to take the global project of sustainable development forward. The Indaba was attended by more than 40 activists from all over South Africa.
They came from various sectors of civil society and from various provinces, including women's organisations, community based organisations, youth organisations, human rights groups, and non-governmental organisations. Many of those present were chosen at sectoral and provincial meetings held in the run-up to the Indaba.
According to the "Call to Action" adopted by the Indaba, the "heads of governments that met in Rio in 1992 have failed to live up to their promises". The Indaba agreed with "civil society" organisations that met at Rio that the fundamental problem was the failure of a development model that puts profit before people and the environment — that is capitalism.
Activists pointed to the fact that the process of economic, social and political changes known as globalisation has accelerated over the last 10 years. This process, which is dominated by the interests of the multinational companies and the capitalist class in general, is the central cause of the deepening poverty and environmental degradation.
The Indaba noted that within South Africa, after seven years of post-apartheid democracy, poverty is on the increase, and the gap between the rich and the poor is widening.
The African National Congress government's Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) macroeconomic strategy was singled out as the main cause of the increase in poverty. GEAR has led, among other results, to huge job losses, a health crisis and the disempowerment of youth and women.
In the light of the failures of the last 10 years, the Indaba resolved that the process towards the 2002 summit, and the summit itself, must be used to rebuild organisations of "civil society" and to raise awareness about issues such as globalisation, neo-liberalism and the sources of poverty in South Africa.
As part of this approach, the Indaba emphasised that the WSSD process must link up with the campaigns being taken up by various communities and organisations. These include the campaigns against the privatisation of state enterprises, against electricity and water cut-offs in many communities, as well as campaigns for the cancellation of the debt of Third World countries.
The key element of the process must be to provide an opportunity "for the voices of the masses to be heard". The Indaba saw itself as building on the struggles against globalisation in other parts of the world, including the uprising of the Zapatistas and the battles in Seattle.
After hours of debate, that went late into the night, the Indaba agreed on a structure that will lead South African civil society toward the 2002 WSSD. The meeting identified key sectors that need to be organised in South Africa. These were community organisation in rural and urban areas, young people, women, First Peoples [indigenous peoples], faith-based groups, the labour movement and non-governmental organisations.
Each of the sectors will meet and elect five delegates to the Indaba. One person from each of the sectors would represent the sector on the Indaba council. The Indaba's main role will be to give political leadership to the South African process, and the Indaba Council will implement the decisions of the Indaba in between the Indaba meetings.
The council will work closely with the Civil Society secretariat, which was set up to undertake the day to day planning and implementation of South African civil society's preparations for the WSSD. The secretariat is also responsible for organising the 2002 Global Civil Society Forum, which will be held at the same time as the governmental summit in Johannesburg.
[Oupa Lehulere is an educator at Khanya College, a labour movement support organisation in Johannesburg, and a contributor to Links, the international journal of socialist renewal.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 21, 2001.
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