Cape Town - The world's global financial institutions as well as UN organisations must be overhauled if developing nations are to tackle poverty, says the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation.
Briefing the media in Cape Town on Thursday, ahead of a three-day UN summit to review the progress made towards achieving 2015's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said international financial institutions needed to become more representative and more development orientated to help developing countries to meet the MDGs.
"Such reform we believe will ensure that they are democratic and accountable, thus reflecting the realities of the 21st century," said Nkoana-Mashabane, who will lead a delegation to the summit which starts on Monday.
She said the global financial crisis had confirmed the current structure and instruments of global economic governance were "largely inadequate" and in need of reform, adding that the crisis had hindered lower income countries in the attainment of the goals.
Pointing to Sub-Sahara Africa, she said despite having made "significant" advances on some the goals, the region was still lagging "far behind" other areas in the world
She said South Africa wanted to, among other things, see the removal of agricultural subsidies from developed world, which limited the entry of agricultural goods from Africa and other developing nations.
South Africa and all the countries of the south were also behind a call for permanent reforms for UN organisations, particularly the UN Security Council (UNSC), she said.
"We will continue to work with like-minded progressive forces to push for reform within," she said, pointing out that despite Africa constituting almost 80 percent of the issues the UNSC the council was still without a permanent African member.
She said it was important for South Africa to learn how other developing countries, particularly those in the South, were tackling poverty alleviation. It was encouraging to see how developing countries, particularly the Bric nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) had helped to pull the world out of the global financial crisis.
Nkoana-Mashabane said a key issue in Sub-Saharan Africa was whether government institutions were sufficiently capacitated to keep reliable statistics on attaining the goals.
Commenting on UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's assertion this week that a further $100 billion would be needed globally to attain the goals, Nkoana-Mashabane said despite the costs, the political will was there, with every country big and small having bought into achieving the goals, even though they were voluntary.
The summit is being held ahead of the 65th session of the UN General Assembly which will convene in New York from 23 to 30 September.
Nkoana-Mashabane said other than its focus on the reform of global institutions and the progress made on meeting the Millennium Development Goals, the South African delegation would push for five other directives at the UN General Assembly session next week, namely: attending to the fall out of the global financial crisis, climate change, the promotion of Nepad, promotion of South-South relations and the eradication of nuclear weapons.
