The development of communities is not about turning people into millionaires, but about giving communities a sense of dignity and confidence in their own abilities. This was a message delivered by KwaZulu-Natal Premier Dr Zweli Mkhize during a breakfast hosted by the National Development Agency (NDA) in Pietermaritzburg this morning.
“Any person living in poverty cannot have a sense of dignity or self-worth, which means there is a big scope for the NDA, NGOs and cooperatives to form a force for change and development, particularly in rural areas,” said Dr Mkhize. He said he has a long standing relationship with the NDA and has seen a number of great successes and some failures. “We need to focus on these successes and replicate them, while learning from our failures,” he said.
Dr Mkhize said the NDA must ensure that it remains close to the people it is designed to serve, and its meetings should be held where the communities exist instead of conference venues. “Conferencing has become big business, where people spend too much time talking about what should be done instead of implementing programs that will lift communities out of poverty,” he said.
He said a number of researches into government programs in the continent have shown that these will continue to succeed as long as there is money. “Once the money dries up, the programs will collapse. We can continue to throw money at the problems, but that will not solve the problem nor build a sense of confidence and self-worth,” he said.
“Money is not the problem, but what we are trying to do is build communities that can sustain themselves,” he said.
Dr Mkhize said for any return on investment to be realized, it would be better to invest money into people who have demonstrated their ability to save money, because they will be able to sustain any type of investment by government.
