Statement to the SADC International Consultative Conference on Poverty and Development

Mr Chairman,

Distinguished Heads of State and Government,

Executive Secretary of SADC

Excellencies, distinguished guests,

Thank you for the invitation to join you at this conference. I am honoured to be here on my first overseas visit as Secretary-General.

I am delighted that it is to this beautiful country of Mauritius. The theme of the last CHOGM was 'Transforming Societies'. This society has transformed itself in recent years.

I am also delighted that my first overseas trip brings me to the environment of SADC, with its record of collective striving and enlightened regionalism, to an organisation of which the overwhelming majority are Commonwealth members. SADC is our largest sub-regional constituency.

SADC is, moreover, the only sub-regional organisation, to the best of my knowledge, that has 'development'; in its name and was established to give a boost to development among its members, as the clear objective.

It is a dynamic part of the world, with some fast-growing economies. It has also shown it ability to deal with conflict situations. This region played an important role in the establishment of NEPAD and the APRM.

The Commonwealth has worked with SADC ever since its inception. We are here not as a donor organisation, but as a strategic partner.

With its 53 member states across the globe, the Commonwealth accounts for nearly a third of the world's population, a quarter of its nations, and more than one fifth of global trade and investment.

We offer access to a network of shared institutions, systems and a common language, in senses more than one, and we also have shared values and concerns.

We can act at the international scale (as in trade, environment and encouraging global concord).

We can act at the regional scale, e.g. with SADC, ECOWAS, PIF, CARICOM, and in support to ACP in Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU, or the Hubs & Spokes trade facilitation project.

We can act at the national scale  -- and have been engaged in member states for decades. 

This conference has two keywords: 'Poverty' and 'Development'

Poverty is the persistent scandal of our times - nearly 750 million Commonwealth citizens live below the poverty line.

Development, therefore, is the primary imperative of our times. The world's leaders declared it as such in 2000, when they set themselves the MDGs.

We share many development concerns - the ravages of HIV/AIDS, the loss of critical human resources like teachers and healthcare workers, international market access for commodities, environmental degradation, and now the emerging crisis in food security.

The Commonwealth too has two keywords, the two pillars of its strategic plan -: 'Democracy' and 'Development'.

'Development' is a common objective for our two organisations, but all these themes are inherently linked.

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Development is not development if it leaves poverty behind..

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But  Democracy and Development are also inter-twined, on which the Commonwealth sponsored an important report.  Development and socio-economic transformation will advance if they are at heart democratic, and are underpinned by institutions of good governance.

Development includes giving people a genuine voice and choice, making the poor and marginalised feel part of the mainstream, levelling imbalances and addresses injustices. Our political, economic and social goal has to be coherent, comprehensive and inclusive development.

It has to go beyond reducing income poverty and just the low income and low consumption phenomenon. It has to encompass poor education, health, sanitation, nutrition and other basic indicators and areas of human development. It also includes powerlessness, voicelessness, vulnerability and fear, as well as gender inequality and environmental degradation. These different aspects of poverty are mutually reinforcing. Progress in human development has lagged behind that in reducing income poverty.

For development to be achieved, and poverty alleviated, it is well recognised that there must be a global partnership that brings together the developed and developing countries.

The Monterrey Consensus was a compact - it was reinforced again in 2005 (the year of G8/Gleneagles and the Commission for Africa)

In the compact, the developing world would develop its own strategies to beat poverty - coherent strategies, united coordination and evaluation mechanisms and accountability in their own systems in the use of resources, good governance, efficiency, and targetting in the use of funds.

The developed world: committed itself to assist that process through resources. It agreed to use as its tools: aid (bigger volumes, better coordination, less conditionality); debt; and trade.

We are struggling in these areas. The indicators are that in 2008, half-way to the 2015 MDG deadline, those goals still seem very remote and difficult to achieve within the stipulated time frame.

Many developing countries have done very well, including here in the SADC region, and have made genuine efforts to move forward. But others remain mired in difficulty and have begun to lose hope.

The developed world, by and large, is yet to fully live up to its part of the compact.

This conference aims to move both further forward.

For  SADC, it seeks two results: an agreement of a SADC Regional Poverty Reduction Framework (RPRF); and the creation of a SADC Poverty Observatory (to monitor and evaluate)

From the developed world it seeks one outcome: renewed pledges to provide enough resources to tip the balance

What value can the Commonwealth add?

The Commonwealth is at work on all your challenges at the national level, with projects in a range of areas, including governance of public institutions; SME support to expand gainful employment; Public-Private Partnerships to create synergies; and review of national HIV/AIDS strategies

The Commonwealth is at work on all your regional challenges: Climate Change through the Lake Victoria Action Plan; urbanisation through the Com-Habitat programme; raising food quality and safety standards; mainstreaming of gender policies - in politics, in business, in society at large; and empowering and harnessing the energies of youth - the regional centre of the Commonwealth Youth Programme is located in the SADC region.

The Commonwealth is at work beyond the SADC region, advocating on its behalf: global multilateral trade deals; global approaches to the environment; and richer countries committing ODA at the promised rate of 0.7% of GNP.

The Commonwealth has convening power in helping you bring together the three partners in domestic development: government, the private sector (the Business Forum at our summits) and civil society (the People's Forum at our summits). All have to be collaborative partners.

It nourishes each, and is strongest as a force for democracy and enlightened governance, embracing but going beyond elections, democratic institutions, lively civil society, free media, into the real, deep-set culture of democracy, participative governance and polity, and especially in the advancement of women and young people.

We in the Commonwealth look forward to working with our partners in SADC to take forward our shared objectives to eradicate poverty and promote development, to reach the fulfilment to which our societies aspire. We also hope to learn a lot from our partners, as we already have.

Thank you.