P Mlambo-Ngcuka: Global Environment Facility third assembly

29 August 2006

Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van
Schalkwyk,
Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel,
The Premier of the Western Cape, Ebrahim Rasool,
Ministers of Environmental Affairs, Finance and Development,
Your Excellencies, Ambassadors of various countries,
Global Environment Facility (GEF) CEO, Monique Barbut,
Associate Administrator of the UNDP, Ad Melkert
Executive Director of the UNEP, Achim Steiner
Director General of UNIDO, Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella
Executive Secretary of UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Hama Arba
Diallo
Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, Ahmed
Djoghlaf,
Distinguished delegates and representatives of international organisations,
NGOs and civil society,
Members of Parliament and Portfolio Committees,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Let me first convey the warmest greetings and welcome from the President of
the Republic, President Thabo Mbeki who cannot be with us today. I welcome all
of you to South Africa and the city of Cape Town. It is symbolic that this
third assembly of the Global Environment Facility is taking place here in Cape
Town, at the very tip of the African continent, home of the fynbos biome and
blessed with remarkable biodiversity.

This tip of the African continent is also potentially challenged by the
impact of climate change, global warming and with warming temperatures
threatening the wine and fruit industries and indications of declining rainfall
also likely to have a significant socio-economic impact. It is about time that
we get decisive on the importance and economics of saving the planet.

Expected outcomes of the assembly

South Africa hosted the World Summit Sustainable Development (WSSD) and the
World Economic Forum only three months ago. These forums reminded us of these
shared international interests and mutual concerns including global
environmental challenges, increasing levels of poverty and a growing gap
between rich and poor, management of trade and financial stability, the
economics of debt and aid, the management of conflict and the politics of
multilateral co-operation.

The third GEF assembly is an important and strategic opportunity for GEF
stakeholders to take stock and collectively strengthen strategies for
addressing some of these interrelated challenges of our time.

It is a time to review whether the policies of one of the major financing
mechanisms for global environmental issues, are indeed able to meet the growing
scale of a set of challenges that are impacting on developing countries in
general and Africa in particular.

Environmental issues are people issues

As you meet at this conference however, another challenge that you must
address yourselves is: how do environmentalists and those concerned with
environmental issues transform environmental issues to people's issues? It is a
challenge that faces all of us to ensure that environmental issues are easily
understood by a person in the street, in that way we will have a broad base of
people who are concerned with the environment as opposed to it remaining an
issue of environmental specialists.

It should concern all of us gathered here today, that when people talk about
the environment they think of it and regard it as a very specialised field in
which there is no room or a lack of a proper space in which common people can
interact with the environment and thus play a positive role in its protection.
We all share this planet. Therefore, the protection of the environment cannot
continue to be just the concern of only a few people.

Demystify the myth

Close to half of the worlds poor live in rural areas that are
environmentally fragile, relying directly on natural resources for their
livelihoods. But global environmental threats are undermining this resource
base.

We must demystify the issues of environment. We must do all that we can to
show that ordinary people, particularly the rural poor, have a role to play in
ensuring that our environment is protected and to promote good practices when
it comes to environmental issues. Protecting the environment should become a
way of life and an income-base. When people redeem economic rewards from taking
care of the environment, there will be less chances of degradation. In South
Africa, programmes such as working for water and working for fire are but a few
that aim to do just that. This supplies the much needed remunerated work that
ordinary people can do helping them to development of their communities.

We must help people to move away from the belief that the work of protecting
the environment and the planet should be entrusted to environmental lobbyists
and scientists. It would be necessary to co-operate much closely with
non-governmental organisations that are dealing with environmental issues to
double their efforts, actions and educational campaigns to show that continued
human existence and sustainability is dependant upon a healthy environment.

We can learn from a number of countries especially in the First World, which
take environmental issues very seriously and have thus developed strong "green
movements" in their countries that lobby to ensure that environmental issues
are central to the work of their governments.

There must be a concerted drive as well to make young people part and parcel
of environmental projects, after all the youth are the future and it is,
therefore in their common interest to ensure that the environment is protected
and preserved. Issues of climate changes, deforestation and so on, must be
uppermost in their minds. We should always endeavour to broaden the base of
people who play a critical role in the campaign to save our planet.

Environmental issues as cross-cutting

We can do this by ensuring that environmental issues are treated as
cross-cutting issues throughout the public service and in public policy as we
do with corporate governance issues.

Another important issue is that of ensuring that we are not pond foolish
when it comes to entrenching environmentally responsible lifestyles. We as
government departments, for instance should not refuse to buy energy saving
bulbs and resorting to buying non-saving energy bulbs arguing that the proper
bulbs are too expensive.

If we continue to do so we contribute to global warming, and we behave in
manner that is penny wise instead of pound wise, because we lack to see a
bigger picture in terms of long term effects and impact of our actions. This
means that we also end up spending more money on electricity bills instead of
using the money to improve on the living standards of our people.

In doing all these things we must also ensure that we clarify that there is
no fundamental conflict between development and environment, we must show that
it is possible to achieve development without having to compromise
environmental matters and that for development to be sustainable it needs to be
environmentally friendly.

In conclusion, let me quote from the World Bank Report of last year where it
says: "There are NOT two worlds, one rich and one poor. There is only one. We
are linked in so many ways: not only by trade and finance, but also by
migration, environment, disease, drugs, crime, conflict, war, and terrorism. We
are linked, rich and poor alike, by a shared desire to leave a better world to
our children and by the realisation that if we fail in one part of the planet,
the rest becomes vulnerable. So poverty somewhere is poverty everywhere.” I
hope that it will guide you in your deliberations. I wish you wisdom in your
deliberations in this conference.

I thank you.

Enquiries:
Thabang Chiloane
Cell: 082 888 8783

Issued by: The Presidency
29 August 2006