[ Home ] [ Speeches & statements ]

The four social partners, civil society, private sector, labour and government shall on 14 to 15 November convene a multi-stakeholder summit to define the socio-economic development challenges facing the Western Cape. The Provincial Government of the Western Cape sees this summit as an important intervention to steer the province onto a new and higher economic growth path.

The objective would be to ensure sustainable growth and development through social dialogue, the formation of partnerships among the public sector, organised labour, organised business and the community constituency.

Similar to the national Growth and Development Summit, the provincial Growth and Development Summit will have its foundations in five themes, which have been identified by the social partners to ensure alignment of strategy towards growth and development.

These five themes are:
* job creation
* human resource development
* investment, infrastructure and the logistical challenge
* economic participation and enterprise development
* governance and local development.

Ebrahim Rasool, the Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Development said: "The provincial Growth and Development Summit is premised on the need to affirm a common vision for promoting rising levels of growth, investment, job creation and people-centred development and more importantly to identify what contribution stakeholders can make towards the implementation of the tasks identified through active participation".

He added: "It intends to find agreement on the framework of the strategy and the way forward. The summit affords us with the opportunity to develop a collective growth and development framework involving business, government, labour and civil society groupings, which captures the overarching challenges and opportunities for growth and development in the province. The summit shall be a milestone in achieving the strategy".

President Mbeki stated in his 2003 State of the Nation Address "our country has a continuing task to push back the frontiers of poverty and expand access to a better life for all. The challenge we all face as South Africans is to put our shoulders to the wheel to accelerate the pace of change". The purpose of the Growth and Development Summit (GDS) is to respond to the President's call. The Western Cape government showed unwavering support to this presidential dictum in March 2003, when Minister Rasool tabled the provincial budget to be allocated for poverty alleviation programmes and ensuring economic growth, through iKapa Elihlumayo, a name we will give our Growth and Development Strategy. To this end the provincial budget as a whole as well as a series of strategic partnerships would serve to stimulate the economy and to open it up to wider participation.

At a recent multi-stakeholder meeting involving representatives from organisations such as Business Cape (AHI, NAFCOC, FABCOS, CCCI) Agri-Western Cape, COSATU, FEDUSA, WECLOGO, EJNF, SANCO, SANGOCO, the City Wide Civil Society Forum initiative, Boland District Development Council and some municipalities, a broad multi-stakeholder process signposting events before and after the provincial GDS was outlined and agreed to.

The process allows all provincial stakeholders to collectively provide their mandated inputs into the discussions with the aim of reaching consensus on a framework for a growth and development strategy for the Western Cape. These will take place at workshops that will focus their discussions on the five summit themes.

"These discussions would serve to inform stakeholders of the envisaged process and their contribution to ensure the success and active participation of all stakeholders. It is intended for these discussion to lead to a framework agreement that would serve to clearly identify the areas and issues to be addressed by a Provincial Growth and Development Strategy and the rules of engagement between the various social partners," Minister Rasool said.

It should be observed that the GDS is only an event is a much larger process. The social partners agreed that a post-summit process that signposts the pathway for the construction of a provincial growth and development strategy should be agreed to.

As part of the preparations for development of the Growth and Development Strategy, we have created a website to mark the launch of the first of many milestones in ensuring iKapa Elihlumayo is a success. The website will be an empowering tool for communities and stakeholders by allowing them access to information. It will also allow government to inform its stakeholders about plans for the Growth and Development Strategy. The website address is www.westerncape.gov.za/gds.

For more information contact Thabo Mabaso 083 414 8144.

Issued by: Department of Finance and Economic Development, Western Cape Provincial Government

15 October 2003