during the 7th Meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Indian Ocean Rim
Association for Regional Co-operation (IOR-ARC), Tehran, Islamic Republic of
Iran
7 March 2007
Honourable Chair,
Distinguished delegates and dialogue partners,
Ladies and gentlemen,
On behalf of the South African delegation I wish to congratulate our host,
the Islamic Republic of Iran, for the good organisation and the hospitality
given to us. You have been able to do so despite the fact that we meet at a
time when the region is going through a very serious crisis, which threatens
regional stability and international peace and security. We remain strong in
our conviction that it is in humanity's interests to prevent any new military
action in this region. We should therefore intensify our efforts to find a
peaceful negotiated solution to the crisis around Iran's nuclear programme.
Chairperson,
Fifty years ago Ghana became the first Sub-Saharan African country to lower the
British flag and hoist the new Ghanaian flag. This was the beginning of the
setting of the sun on the British Empire in Africa. Yesterday as we celebrated
this happy occasion we were acutely conscious that while colonialism,
new-colonialism and apartheid were defeated, we had inherited distorted
economic structures with a legacy of poverty and underdevelopment. Today,
despite all our efforts the vast majority of our peoples still live below the
poverty data line. The positive impact of globalisation has still not
materialised in many of our countries.
This is why we give such importance to the IOR-ARC initiative. We see it as
an important mechanism to achieve our developmental agenda. For us the success
of the IOR-ARC is a matter of life and death. At the end of the 20th century a
new generation of African leaders proclaimed that the 21st century must be the
African century and adopted an African programme for African development, viz
the new partnership for African development.
We were conscious that while we had our own responsibilities to succeed we
had to mobilise support from the international community especially from the
countries of the South. It was in this context that in 1995 President Mandela
stated "the natural urge of the facts of history and geography should broaden
itself to include the concept of an Indian Ocean Rim for socio-economic
co-operation and other peaceful endeavours."
Chairperson,
Ten years ago in March 1997 we formally launched our Association in Mauritius.
Despite our economic, political, cultural and social diversities we came
together not only because of an ocean but because we had a vision. Today, we
need to constructively, critically and frankly assess what we have concretely
achieved in the last 10 years. The IOR-ARC was formed because we believed that
it could be a mechanism for enhancing economic interaction in the region and
that the IOR-ARC would be a key to unlock the potential of the India Ocean Rim,
in particular enhancing trade and investment flows, trade liberalisation as
well as the sustainable exploitation of the vast tourism potential of our
association's members.
Have we succeeded to achieve this vision?
A Secretariat non-paper calls on us to discuss clear and concrete proposals to
re-energise the organisation and prevent it from dying a natural death. We do
not have the luxury of allowing our association to die naturally or
unnaturally.
The non-paper identifies some problems
1. A Core Group of Heads of Missions (Mauritius, Iran, Singapore, India and
United Arab Emirates) was tasked to conceptualise the Format of Economic
Summit. To date there has been no correspondence on the constitution of the
Core Group or on the proposals.
2. The paper also expresses its disappointment on the activities of the Working
Group of the Heads of Mission (WGHM). It states that it seems that the WGHM has
lost interest.
3. Regional meetings are not being held on schedule and sometimes cancelled or
postponed.
4. The IOR-ARC Secretariat is experiencing difficulties to keep up with the
dynamic global economic conditions.
5. The lack of technical staff at the Secretariat is severely affecting the
performances of the Secretariat and the Organisation at large.
The question is what is to be done?
The Chairperson's report and the Senior Officials proposals can serve as a
foundation to build on. I am sure that we all agree that the IOR-ARC should be
more than a platform for sharing ideas but must serve as a vehicle towards
producing tangible results that have a qualitative impact on our developmental
agenda. An important element of making this a reality is the strengthening of
the necessary institutional capacity.
In this regard, South Africa has seconded an official to Mauritius to
augment the capacity of the Secretariat. Other member states should also
consider assisting the Secretariat logistically and financially to seriously
make an impact on strengthening the operations of our Association. I say this
conscious of the fact that structures, how ever strong, will not be effective
if we don't have a prioritised realistic programme of action.
The time has come to ensure that the decisions taken at this 7th meeting
will facilitate and encourage in concrete terms a mutually beneficial
socio-economic co-operation and other peaceful endeavours between all member
countries.
This meeting should also creatively determine how the IOR-ARC can be an
effective mechanism to enhance our capacity to ensuring that concrete
programmes of other institutions such the New Asia Africa Strategic
Partnership, Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN), the Chinese Africa
partnership, the Japanese Tokyo International Conference on Development
(TICAD), and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) initiative
and can be meaningful utilised in our common interests.
We are all concerned about the future of the IOR-ARC. We need to elaborate
further on our vision of our organisation to answer the question - where do we
want to take or lead the IOR-ARC in the next ten years. Part of this work will
entail that we resolve our planning process with the view to at least construct
a three to four year plan that will establish a continuation from the present
chair to those who will lead us in the next two to four years.
South Africa also believes that after 10 years plus of continuous dialogue
with partners and observers we need to resolve here that we indeed welcome
their active participation in projects identified by the association. This
contribution may be financial, technical or other means. Our resolution can
then be translated into agreeable modalities of co-operation. A further
mechanism for contact could also be constructed around the Executive Director
based in Mauritius.
South Africa looks forward to constructive discussions regarding the future
direction of the IOR-ARC. The objective conditions many of our countries face
demands that our deliberations must be based on concrete realities and it must
be targeted and outcome orientated. We must express our appreciation to India,
Oman and Iran for their contribution to the Special Fund.
The Special Fund should empower us to concretely implement priority
projects. We should look at how all of us can also contribute to the Special
Fund and determine how best this fund can be utilised to enable us to achieve
our common objectives.
In conclusion may I once again reiterate our appreciation to the Islamic
Republic of Iran for hosting this event in these very challenging times. Thank
you also for the hospitalities extended to us since our arrival in Tehran.
Issued by: Department of Foreign Affairs
7 March 2007
Source: Department of Foreign Affairs (http://www.dfa.gov.za)
