The South African government would like to express disappointment at a statement issued by Groundwork questioning the composition of the South African delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany.
The policy governing the composition of the South African delegation for all UN climate change meetings and Conferences of Parties is constituted with representatives of government, business, civil society, labour and SALGA (local government) representatives and also includes representative with specific skills, particularly from the South African scientific community.
It must be noted that once a part of the South African delegation representatives from sectors other than Government operate under strict code of conduct and discipline.
This policy that draws on expertise from across society in general was agreed to in 2004 at the National Committee on Climate Change to enable the South African delegation to include very best capacity in the country. Since then, there have been members of the delegation drawn from a wide range of sectors like academic, business and the Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) communities. It is crucial to also add that at the COP itself, our delegation has also included parliamentarians and local government representatives.
Furthermore, in order to broaden access to negotiations by civil society, it has been a practice – finance permitting - for government to pay for trade union, youth and women organisations.
The basis of the inclusion is that all of these individuals represent the SA government, not their respective organisations, and are bound by the country position.The view of government is that the current team has been of benefit to the SA negotiating position.
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Albi Modise
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