REGIONAL FORUM ON POVERTY ERADICATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA MEETS IN MIDRAND, 3 - 6 NOVEMBER
Press Release
AFR/24
SOC/4425
REGIONAL FORUM ON POVERTY ERADICATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA MEETS IN MIDRAND, 3 - 6 NOVEMBER
19971105 MIDRAND, 3 November (UN Information Centre) -- A four-day Regional Forum on Poverty Eradication in Southern Africa opened this morning in Midrand, South Africa. Organized by the United Nations Information Centres (UNICs) in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, the Forum has brought together the media, non-governmental organizations, academics and the poor themselves to address the problem of poverty in southern Africa. The meeting is the second in a series being organized in southern Africa; the first phase took place in Windhoek, Namibia, last May.The purpose of the Regional Forum is to follow up and promote concrete action on the recommendations and decisions made at United Nations international conferences, especially the 1995 World Summit on Social Development held in Copenhagen, aimed at eradicating poverty, creating employment opportunities and enhancing social integration.
Opening the Forum on behalf of South African Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, Deputy Minister Essop Pahad commended the Forum for inviting rural people as participants and for paying timely attention to rural women. He said that the next century must be a century of African renaissance. However, African renaissance would be impossible within the context of poverty.
In his message read out on his behalf by UNIC Director for Namibia Finjap Njinga, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Public Information Samir Sanbar paid special tribute to the media practitioners and members of civil society participating in the Forum. He recalled the courageous and indispensable role they played in exposing the injustices of apartheid and colonialism in southern Africa. "No less significant is the increasingly important roles they are playing in promoting and monitoring the progress of anti-poverty initiatives and programmes", he said.
Among the background papers presented on the first day of the Forum were two papers prepared jointly by the UNICs. The first, presented by UNIC Director for South Africa Yobert Shamapande, outlined the deepening conditions of poverty in southern Africa, where half the countries in the subregion had a human development index of lower than 0.5.
Presenting the second paper, UNIC Director for Zimbabwe Ceciwa Kbonje described the critical role played by the media in the fight against poverty.
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Illustrating the power of the media in galvanizing international action, she pointed to how photographers' reports had drawn the world's attention to the famine in Ethiopia and the genocide in Rwanda.
Also speaking at the first working session was the Resident Coordinator for the United Nations system's operational activities for development, David Whaley, who highlighted the work of the United Nations poverty theme group in South Africa. He made special reference to the collaborative efforts between the United Nations system, civil society and the Government, which had led to the declaration of a "war on poverty" in August this year. Statements were also made by the country representatives of the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO).
Professor Sam Moyo, of the Department of Development Studies at the University of Zimbabwe, presented a major paper on "Land Entitlements and Growing Poverty in Southern Africa". In it, he stated that inequitable access to and use of land in southern Africa was a critical constraint on poverty eradication. Some 70,000 white farmers owned 87 per cent of farming land in South Africa, for example, while 300 times that number of black farmers were confined to 13 per cent of the land. He further stated that official development policy frameworks rarely focused on the uneven distribution of or access to land.
The first day concluded with initial presentations by grass-roots participants from the rural communities of South Africa.
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