News and events

SA GOVERNMENT OPENS POWERFUL AFRICAN LOBBYING VOICE

1 MAY 2006

The lobbying programme of the African Monitor, one of the strongest home-grown voices for African development ever, is already beginning to bear fruit.

The Presidency of South Africa, undoubtedly one of the most influential constitutional and democratic institutions in the world, will officially attend the launch of the African Monitor in Cape Town on 2 May 2006.

The Deputy-President of South Africa, Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka will officially launch the African Monitor at the President Hotel in Bantry Bay.

The key drivers of the African Monitor, the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Reverend Njongonkulu Ndungane, says the South African (SA) Government, could play a key role in ensuring the numerous initiatives for the sustainable development of the continent, such as the African Peer Review Mechanism, the African Union, the Millennium Development Goals, as well as its pragmatic approach to Africa’s revival through the African Renaissance, should enhance efforts to ensure urgent and effective implementation of commitments to Africa in ways that deliver tangible results at grassroots level.

Archbishop Ndungane says the SA Government’s role in global advocacy and lobbying campaigns for a fair and just political, social and political dispensation for developing countries would greatly assist the African Monitor towards achieving its aim of raising its voice to lobby the plight of Africans in the corridors of power all over the world.

He says in addition the SA Government’s unique position, especially that of a credible and diplomatically astute voice listened to by virtually all the nations of the world, coupled with its ties to countries such as Brazil and India, makes the country a formidable force and a tool for the African Monitor’s House of Wisdom, or Togona, to raise expectations and awareness, improve accountability, motivate and empower grassroots communities to engage in policies and programmes that affect them directly.

"For us the South African government’s buy-in into our aims to strengthen the bridge between Africa and donor communities is a start that will see us robustly engaging other African counties to join us, hence the launching of chapters or branches of the African Monitor in other countries", Archbishop Ndungane says.

"We will also be requesting the South African government to put pressure on their African counterparts, especially regarding the nurturing of respect towards certain universal human rights, whether basic human rights, freedom of expression, ending poverty or ending violent conflict".