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17 November 2008

Ministers
Executive Secretary
High Commissioners and Ambassadors
Senior officials
Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat officials
Ladies and gentlemen

It is a great honour for me to be accorded this opportunity to chair the First Food Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) Ministers' Cluster Meeting,

Firstly, I wish to convey our sincere gratitude especially to the Minister of Agriculture, Republic of Botswana and to the People and Government of Botswana for hosting the meeting and the warm welcome and hospitality accorded to us since our arrival in this beautiful and peaceful country.

Senior official and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat you are also acknowledged with thanks for the hard work well done in ensuring that this meeting takes place to realise our regional vision and mission.

To the outgoing Chair (Zambia), I wish to thank you heartily in steering the ship through the turbulent seas, your experience will guide us in the driving position and to the incoming Chair (DRC) you are most welcome to work with us as a Troika to successfully deliver on our mandate.

We mourn with the people of Zambia on the passing away of President Mwanawasa, one of the gallant sons and leaders of Africa. His untimely death was a great loss to the people of this region and to Africa as a whole.

I am also bringing to you greetings on behalf of the People and Government of South Africa. We are a state in mourning of the late Goodwill Ambassador Ms Marriam "Mama Afrika" Makeba who passed away in Italy on Sunday 09 November 2008.

I find it befitting to share with you the good memories of this martyr as "she" shared same vision with us in ensuring "food security for all" and she was the Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Africa Region Ambassador. Moment of silence observed

Global challenges remain our challenge to develop appropriate intervention strategies. Just to cite a few the steep increases in food and energy prices, climate change, the never ending negotiation of the Doha Round within the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the use of food crops for bio-fuel, the global financial crisis that leads to global socio-economic insecurity with the continent's development efforts overlooked. I believe that we will be challenged by our principals to address these challenges in achieving food security and poverty alleviation in the region.

The 28th SADC Ordinary Summit; Council of Ministers held in Johannesburg, South Africa; the last Integrated Council of Ministers (ICM) held in Manzini, the Kingdom of Swaziland and other previous gatherings of this nature bestowed on us a responsibility in liaison with the Directorate Food Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) to achieve the objectives of the region in this challenging environment and report progress to our principals.

The outcome of our meeting today is expected to deliver tangible, results that will ensure regional food security, poverty alleviation, economic development and growth in the region and ultimately the Continent at large. This is a call of integrating our efforts with affected stakeholders through the Directorate FANR. It is a known fact that agriculture plays an important role in our regional economies. This is a fact that cannot be ignored nor allow other sector's to undermine this sector's importance to the welfare of the people in the region, rather it is incumbent on us to champion the importance of the agricultural sector across the socio-economic spectrum.

The cross-cutting nature of our work calls for the Directorate to work closely with other Directorates to realise our objective. During the 28th SADC Ordinary Summit, the region was declared a free trade area and a custom union envisaged by 2010. There was also a Tripartite Summit of the three regional groupings (SADC, COMESA and EAC) hosted by the Government of Uganda in Kampala, with the primary objective being to forge harmonised working relations between the three communities. The successful implementation of the signed tripartite agreement is upon us as most of the traded good is agriculture related.

Therefore, the work to harmonise policies on animal and plant health is important to ensure the implementation of the free trade agreement which we believe, will create jobs, alleviate poverty and improve economic conditions within our countries.

We have to utilise the existing resources in our countries to ensure food security. The current challenges of late rains, increased input costs and impact of climate change, require us to work together and ensure investment in agriculture. Hence, my calling to the Directorate is to work tirelessly, to harmonise our work with other stakeholders.

It will also be a failure on our part not to recognise the importance of the contribution made in the sector by women and youth. Our programmes implemented in the region should consider all these matters. Private sector partnerships need to be encouraged in order for us to fulfil our mandate.

Colleagues, I would have failed our region if I do not mention the challenges around sustainability of projects. Most of our projects are donor funded. It will be necessary therefore we ensure that all project proposals have an element of sustainability. We acknowledge support from donors but we encourage them also to utilise expertise within the region to ensure that by the time the projects come to an end, we have acquired the necessary expertise.

In conclusion, I would like to wish you all a fruitful meeting and deliberations that will make us all proud and our future generation to build on them. I will depend on your support to ensure that we reach our goals.

Ke a leboga!

Issued by: Department of Agriculture
17 November 2008
Source: Department of Agriculture (http://www.nda.agric.za/)