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| Introductory Speakers: | Richard N. Haass, president, Council on Foreign Relations |
|---|---|
| Nelson Mandela, President, South Africa | |
| Speaker: | Graca Machel, President, Foundation for Community Development, Mozambique |
| Presider: | Princeton N. Lyman, Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies, Council on Foreign Relations |
May 10, 2005
Council on Foreign Relations
PRINCETON LYMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce someone you all know, Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. [Applause]
RICHARD HAASS: Well, thank you. More important, let me welcome another president, President Mandela. [Applause] Do you want to say one or two words? I've never known a president not to say a few words.
Nelson Mandela
NELSON MANDELA: You know, I am not educated as you are. And what I would say here is something that would disappoint you. So I prefer not to say anything except to say good evening. I am happy that you have tolerated me to come and appear before you. In fact I'm trembling, although my clothing is covering my movement inside. Because I am used to deception, and because otherwise, if I didn't adopt deception methods I would not have been here today. Thank you very much. [Applause]
Thank you very much. I am happy to be here. And if it were not my wife, I would have found it very difficult to come here. But she said,"If you wanted to maintain this marriage, [laughter] you must do what I tell you. You must go to this meeting, and greet them with respect, and bow when you greet them. I hope I have complied with her instruction. Thank you very much. It's such an honor for me to be here. [Applause]
LYMAN: Well, as you know, this is a very special occasion. I want to thank you all for being here. This is a wonderful, wonderful group. I didn't mention at the beginning, and I want to mention, this is an on-the-record meeting, and as I mentioned before, it will be telecast across the country as well as on the webcast on our website at the Council on Foreign Relations.
This is how the program will proceed. I'm going to shortly introduce a representative of the Behrman family who has endowed this lecture series. I will then introduce our speaker, and then following her address, we will have some time for questions and answers, and according to Council--in fact, very strong rules--we will end at 7:00 o'clock sharp.
Let me introduce to you Greg Behrman. Tonight is the inauguration, as I said, of a new series at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Darryl G. Behrman Lecture series on Africa, sponsored by the Behrman family. And it is my pleasure to introduce to you Greg Behrman. He is the author of an outstanding book calledThe Invisible People: the History of U.S. Policy Toward HIV and AIDS. And he will tell us about the family and their decision to endow this series. Greg.
GREG BEHRMAN: Thanks, Princeton, and good evening. My father, Darryl Behrman, was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1950. At 22, without knowing a soul in the U.S., he emigrated halfway around the world to America. Here he would chase and realize the American dream. He built a business with his brother. He built a family with his adoring wife. He was an accomplished outdoorsman and a passionate conservationist. Though he would come to call America home, in truth dad never really left Africa. He would bring Africa with him, in his soul and his imagination.
We're so honored to have Graca Machel, Africa's stateswoman, and one of the continent's most eloquent champions, here as the inaugural event's featured speaker. It was also, of course, a unique thrill and honor to have Nelson Mandela here with us tonight. My father admired him enormously.
Today, the destinies of the United States and Africa are bound in many ways that are not widely appreciated. They are bound by common challenges, common threats, and common opportunities. A richer conversation and a deeper exploration will promote policies which may touch the lives of people in both places for the better. It is our hope that, in a small but meaningful way, the Darryl Behrman lecture will make a contribution. Our family could think of no better, no wiser, person to preside over this lecture program than Princeton Lyman. And it's wonderful that it should have as eminent a home as the Council on Foreign Relations.
The greatest gift I will ever have is to be my father's son. For Darryl, both America and Africa were sources of endless gifts. I'd like to think of this lecture as my father's gift to us all. It's offered with enthusiasm, anticipation, and above all, with great hope. Thank you. [Applause]
LYMAN: Thank you very much, Greg. And thank you to your whole family for making this evening and this series possible. When we were working on this series, we were determined, really, that the inauguration of this lecture should be by someone of international stature, someone of great wisdom and sensitivity, someone who could articulate to America the Africa agenda in the most meaningful way. And thus we were delighted with Graca Machel, [who] accepted our invitation to give this address. She brings to us all these qualities.
Many of you know her very well, and I won't go into a long history of the many things she has done. But she was a leader in the independence movement in Mozambique, a minister of education. She has been a champion of literacy, of women's rights, of civic society. Indeed, it's because of [the] leadership that she brings and others, that Mozambique today is one of the most successful democracies and the fastest-growing economy on the continent.
In 1994, the United Nations Secretary General [Boutros Boutros-Ghali] appointed her to chair the study on the impact of conflict--armed conflict--on children. The personal note that she wrote at the beginning of her report revealed the power and the impact of her involvement, and it stands today as one of the most penetrating statements on this subject. Her report was a landmark, and it's led to international conventions against child soldiers and other abuses.
Today she is active worldwide on behalf of children, development, women's rights, and indeed, human dignity. She is the president for the Foundation for Community Development in Mozambique, the chancellor of the University of Cape Town, and chairman of the board of directors of The Vaccine Fund. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of hearing her address the Bishop T. Walker Dinner in Washington. I was mesmerized. So, it's a great honor to introduce to you Mrs. Graca Machel. [Applause]
GRACA MACHEL: Good evening. First of all, I would like to thank the Behrman family and the Council on Foreign Relations for giving me the honor of speaking at the inauguration of this lecture series. I have some notes here, and I don't think I can manage to read, so if you allow me, I will just think and try to share what is here and the Council can keep it later, if needed be. How long am I supposed to speak? Now we have to adjust the time, right?
UNKNOWN: Twenty minutes.
MACHEL: Twenty minutes. OK. I have to say, also, that I'm not an English-speaking person, so I won't be very perfect with my English, but I hope we will understand one another.
We agreed that tonight I'm going to talk of Africa and its agenda. I will try to take you through the other side of Africa, the other face of Africa, which does not appear in the New York Times and Washington Post, CNN, or BBC, but which is the Africa which is being built by the millions of millions of Africans who many times do not have a voice. And to many of you, they are only statistics, counting statistics.
I want to try tonight to bring to you what they are, and what they do, what they feel, how they are shaping their lives; they are shaping the continent, they are contributing to shaping the world in which we live today. So I'll take you a little bit back to history. Africa is today composed by 53 countries. About 40, 50 years back, all these countries were colonies, colonized by British, by French, by Portuguese, and by Dutch, whoever. And this colonial era has lasted more than 500 years, so five centuries. It was 1957 that the first country to become independent, which was Ghana, set in motion a movement of liberation throughout the continent, in which Africans said they need to take control of their destiny, and they have to get rid of colonial regimes and colonial rule.
So, in about 40 years, so four decades, this liberation wind of change did cover all over of the continent. The last colony was Namibia, but we still had the racial oppression, the apartheid system, in South Africa. And only in 1994, when South Africa achieved its freedom, then you could say the continent is free from political oppression.
And this [was] done in 40 years versus 500 years, I want us to agree, it's a great achievement. [Applause] And that's to say, many of us do not have that in our back, in our minds. We are talking of a continent of young states, of young nations. You may say,"Yes, we had nations before colonialization." But I don't want to describe here how colonization has exactly tried to crush what would be our way of being, not only in political terms, in economic terms, but more importantly, culturally.
So this period did leave scars in Africans, which we are still struggling to--to heal and to get rid of them. But my point is, Africa is not a story of failure alone. Africa is a story of glorious struggle, which reversed in a very short period of time what was the colonial rule. Because we had achieved what was important, the possibility of making our own decisions, to assert ourselves, to set the agendas of our own destiny, it's not by chance that now Africans are chartering a political agenda, an economic agenda, and a social and cultural agenda anew to vindicate our past and what it is positive of our past, but to project ourselves into a world which is fast changing as you know, but to catch the past of development, having in mind that we missed all these centuries behind.
What is the political agenda today? Many of you may have heard of African Union [AU]. The African Union of today is completely different than what was the old AU. The old AU was based on efforts by governments. It was government-based. [Today,] the African Union is people-centered.
One: We value all the democratic principles, and in particular, the principles of political freedom for people to choose the institutions and the governments of their choice. And we said,"You will be a member of the African Union as parliament or as government if you have been elected," which means no one can belong to the African Union today if he had not come to power through constitutional--constitutional principles. And that's a major change. So we have what we call the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, democratically elected because they represent their own people.
We have a parliament which is composed by at least five members of each parliament of the 53 countries, which is a sovereign body then to make the decisions at a parliamentary level. We never had this before. We have a Court of Justice, which allows us not only to solve disputes among states if they emerge, but more importantly, it gives the rights to any African as individual, or institutions also can--to appeal to the Court of Justice if you feel that your rights have been violated. If you don't feel comfortable with whatever has been decided at your own country level, you can appeal to the African Court of Justice.
We have also established--we are establishing what we call ECOSOC [Economic and Social Council] in reference of ECOSOC of the United Nations. This is a body which, for the first time, brings together all organizations of--civil-society organizations--whether they are women's networks, youth, academic and research institutions, unions, business, you name it, to be able to represent the people's voices and interface with this elected body. But for you to be a representative within ECOSOC of your own country, you have to be elected in your own--I mean at the continental level, you have to be elected. You have to get the legitimacy of civil-society organizations who have to decide who can speak on behalf of them at the continental level.
Because I said we are 53, we--it would be difficult to manage a major change without relying on what we call sub-regional bodies. So we have five sub-regions--north, central, west, east, and--north, central, west, east, and southern, yes, five sub-regions--to encourage integration at the sub-regional level, to build the strong blocs, which will build, then, the union. And whatever is decided at the continental level, the implementation has to go through the sub-regions, and then of course, to reach the individual nations. And things have also to come from the nations through the sub-regions to reach then the continental level.
The political agenda we have is not only institutional. I mentioned already the imperative of a democratic process. I did mention the importance of human rights. But we put a strong emphasis on governance, governance. And there are a series of rules and norms which have been established as benchmarks which all African Union institutions, and all African Union members, and civil-society organizations within the continent have to follow those benchmarks.
But furthermore, we decided then to establish a mechanism which is to encourage, to encourage governance, and not only to encourage, but to manage it, and I'm jumping now to talk about the African Peer Review [Mechanism], which is an innovative way of having peers--in this case it means heads of state--invite other colleagues, their colleagues, heads of states, to come and say,"This is my country. This is how I am organized today. Come and see how you can help us"--let's say in Mozambique, in South Africa, or in Kenya, how to improve governance in a process way.
There are no-go areas. Anything can be questioned within this process. I mean from budgetary aspects, from policy if you like, from how you relate with citizens, how you strengthen or you help a civil society, et cetera, how you integrate minorities if you have them, how you deal with issues of gender, young people, employment, everything. But we establish guidelines, and these guidelines are used as a major reference for any country to self-assess, and then for these to be tabled to the heads of states, the forum, and then they will come in through a group of what they call eminent persons to interact with the nation and to say,"Yes, these are your strengths; these are your weaknesses, and these are the gaps we have to fill."
And from this to have a roadmap of how do you consolidate your strengths, how do you strengthen your weaknesses, and how then you fill the gaps of what you have to accomplish. In this process, you have to say,"What are the internal resources you have to achieve that," and,"What will be additional resources you may need, both from African fellows, but also from the international community to strengthen your efforts?" This is to say, we are moving to a process where governments cannot hide anymore how they are using public funds. Governments cannot hide anymore how they are implementing policies which have been of consensus in parliament or at the national level. Governments are learning, actually, to interact enough in a constructive and productive way. Civil society likewise, learning to interact with the government, solving the eternal--we used to have a sort of hostility between those elected and those who elect, and we are bringing together the two faces of the same coin to strengthen [not only] our nations, but to strengthen our continent.
One of the major features of this is the importance of women, gender. For the first time in our history, our heads of state have to accept that 50 percent of commissioners to the African Union commission, 50 percent are men, 50 percent are women. All the bodies of the African Union have to follow the same rule to give space and place, the rightful place which women have to occupy in our society. This, in a continent where you have patriarchal principles very much entrenched in our practices, where you have religious beliefs many times making it difficult to accept and to give equality to women, this coming from the top body of the Union--it's a strong message. It's a very strong message, which has now led to an indication of what has to be done at the sub-regional level and, of course, at the national level. It's not also by chance that some of the liberation movements who are in power today, like South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, yes most of those, have now the highest representation of women in parliament. Rwanda, you wonder, for very good reasons, has the highest in the world, the highest representation of women in the world. It's 49 percent. Even the Scandinavian countries which have gone further than us, Rwanda is the first in the world.
So, I mean, let's agree on certain things. The European Union has got what they call the Commission, isn't it? They established themselves a long time back, and of course, they have very good examples of how democracy runs. But they haven't reached the 50 percent of women in their commissions, but we are doing it. And that's good. I think it's important to say. [Applause] This question of principles and implementation of principles, committed to principles, yes. Africans are doing this, even going ahead of the so-called developed world.
What does it mean, democracy and respect for people? You may be underdeveloped, but you can do it. This is something which also goes, I could [give] more and more examples on how we are treating youth, et cetera. But let me move now to the economic agenda.
The economic agenda: because we have now established a look inwards, we are no longer depending on--you have been colonized by the British, by the French, but you are Africa. The policies which we are shaping now are based on interests and priorities defined by Africans, and not agendas--sorry--defined by our former colonies. For the first time, we have an economic agenda which brings together all Africans, regardless of the level of development, regardless of the historical background, regardless of whether you are a monarchy or you are a democratic nation. All of us, we have an economic agenda we rally around what is called NEPAD. What is the meaning of NEPAD? New Partnership for African Development. Why partnership? It's exactly to tell ourselves, Africans, that more than ever we have to walk shoulder to shoulder with other Africans for us to move in development. That's a very important step.
Development is not to look at Africa and abroad. First of all is Africa among Africans, to encourage this partnership. Second, within every one of our nations, to bring what is called in the language, public-private partnership. So those who are in public life, in private life, to say,"We have to work together to come together." So partnership, which is an issue, which is being stressed so that we will build the African strength to work together in one voice with the same policy, then to interact with the rest of the world. Then development of Africa, rooted in African needs, interests and priorities, in which we interact with Europe, with America, with Asia, with everyone, to move forward.
This is the first time we have this economic agenda. Before we talked of, you know, social development, but we didn't have an instrument of consensus of which encourages everything which I just mentioned. The economic agenda is based also in giving value to our own resources and to use our resources. And of course, it's a huge challenge.
Some of you must be thinking,"Oh, are you really using oil for your development?" Not yet, but we want to use it for our own development now. Some of you will say,"Are you using diamonds? Are you using it for your--" not yet. Agriculture,"If you have all the conditions you have in Africa, why are you starving?"
Exactly. We look into the potentials we have: How to use them to meet the basic needs of our people, and how to use them for our further development. We give a lot of importance in this to development science and technology, and we have programs which are to integrate, to encourage integration across countries, experiences in learning together, working together, including universities which have to adjust curricula, et cetera, et cetera, to build the appeal of building the sub-regions and to build the continent.
And then we also have a social agenda--I have to try not to be too long. The social agenda, it is basically priority to education, priority to health, priority to water and sanitation. The importance again, I will insist here, of science and technology, to try to build the bridges of our backwardness in science and technology, but to use the new technologies to build the bridge with development today.
It's not by chance that we have a good [inaudible] of the program looking and exploring the development of this. One of the examples, for instance, is what we call East Coast, the initiative of East Coast, where it is a continental initiative to connect secondary--we start with secondary of course--secondary schools to Internet. Just for these kids to be able to connect with others, and of course to connect with the world.
But not only kids. I mean, teachers also in exploring better ways of teaching. Some of the examples of social agenda. And in this, you will ask me,"What is the place of malaria? Cholera? HIV/AIDS?" Yes, these are huge challenges. But as we speak, our heads of state have had several consultative meetings in which the agendas are to be connected and to say,"You can't fight HIV/AIDS alone. You have to do it with your neighbors. You can't do it alone." You can't do malaria alone. You have to do it with your neighbors. How do you allocate resources? How do you research? Et cetera, et cetera.
For every single, major challenge which we have, strategies are in place. The problem today is implementation. How do we move quickly and solidly to implement all these policies in a way it starts to make a visible impact in the changing of the continent? And that's where probably you are going to challenge me. To say,"Well, we haven't seen these changes yet you're talking about." They may not be today visible. They may not have produced the impact we expect. But these are the underlying conditions of policies, of human capacity being built, consensus being built, the conviction and the commitment to say,"We Africans have to take control of our own lives, despite the level in which we are here."
And this is the Africa which is not portrayed to you. This is the Africa you are not being told about. And we think, in a relatively short period of time, this will start to emerge, will show the major shift and change which is taking place in the continent. If this is so, maybe it's important here to mention the initiatives of some of the G-8 [group of eight] countries led by Britain in the so-called Africa Commission. Within this concept of partnership, some developed countries have taken the initiative to sit together with Africans and say,"Let us take mutual responsibility for changing the situation in this continent, understanding that what affects Africa affects the rest of the world." In a global world where we live, these are not African problems, but they are challenges of human kind today.
What are the responsibilities of Africans? What are the responsibilities of developed countries? In every single case we have here three pillars. One is debt relief, or debt consolidation, as you may want to call it. Second is fair trade. And third is an increase, a significant increase, of aid, exactly to tap into these changes which are coming, to tap resources which can make a huge impact in changing the conditions of people in our continent.
For every single pillar of these three, there are indications of what African leaders, African nations have to do, and what developed nations have to do to encourage mutual responsibility and mutual accountability. Because we have also experience in which developed world will say,"Africa is not doing enough." And Africa will say, also,"Developed world is not doing enough." We need to have very clear indicators of what we agree to do, and what are the responsibility of each one of us, so that we will have a process in which we evaluate and we assess the steps we have made, but at the same time, we'll develop this common sense--I mean, common commitment and this common capacity of assessing and moving together.
This is within the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, as internationally agreed commitments to move forward. This is within all the commitments which have been agreed also within the United Nations.
Now, what is U.S. expected to do? Because I'm talking to Americans tonight. One: Get yourself informed. Because sometimes, at least that's how we sense, and there on the other side of the Atlantic, that people in this part of the world are not informed enough about what's happening in Africa. So first, please get informed. Second, get engaged. Engaged in which way? First of all, we'd like you to encourage the administration of this country to engage multilaterally, to do things within multilateralist--let me say we welcome and we congratulate this administration with allocation of resources for AIDS, allocation of resources for what we call the millennium accounts, Millennium Challenge Account. Very good, but we would rather have the $15 billion for AIDS within the global fund and not done separately.
Why it is so important? It is important because the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis is a common, agreed channel of embracing all aspects of AIDS and tuberculosis and malaria. The $15 billion go only to AIDS. They don't counter malaria and tuberculosis. And you know what? In West Africa, the first killer is not AIDS, it is malaria. So when you do that, there's a [inaudible] choose who to support and choose who to put aside. Within the Global Fund, the criteria are very clear, and everyone can get access to these sources. Not only that, the way this [inaudible] fund comes to us, we are told what are the messages we can get across to our people, and what are the messages we cannot talk about. You know, AIDS is intimately linked to culture. The way Mozambique has to speak to Mozambicans, it's not going to be exactly the same as Mali is going to do it. Or exactly the same way Kenya or Uganda is going to do. Let everyone develop the messages and strategies which are adjusted to the reality of that country. You can't dictate from here and think that it's going to work. And I must tell you, it is not working. And that is something--I'll just give an example of why we welcome, but we would also welcome one, multilateralism, because we have considered all Africa is involved; second, respect for our own countries, our own culture, our way of doing things. And resources have to tap into what we believe is the best way to tackle the challenges we face in every country.
I think it's important also that Americans engage the administration exactly in these initiatives of the Africa Commission. We have heard already, but even I went to speak to the ministers of finance of the G-8, and conveniently, the minister of finance of this country [Treasury Secretary John Snow] got a cold and he couldn't attend the meeting. But the message we did receive clearly is that all these issues of solving the debt doesn't work for us. The problem is that the debt is not [to] work for America; it's to work for countries which are indebted.
And what I'm trying to say here, when you make a commitment to engage in solving global things, global challenges, you have to have, being a powerful nation as you are, but you have to have the humility to accept difference, to accept the individuality of other nations and of other regions. We would like you to talk to your administration in the way you will believe to be the best, because we respect you also the way you do your own business, the way you believe to be the best, to say, a leader, a true leader, will have always the humility and the modesty of listening and respecting the voice of others.
The other way I would like to engage Americans is to build a movement, a national movement here. I mean, you must engage the administration, you must. I'm suggesting you should engage the administration, and to engage the Congress. But if you have influential groups in this country, which are not in power but are very influential who need to be educated about international relations, and the importance of being global, and not only to be Americans. No matter how powerful you are, but to be global. I think I would suggest you do that. You have your own agenda of how to do it.
But I think we would appeal also to civil-society organizations, with aligning themselves with a movement which is called Make Poverty History. More than 200 civil-society organizations in the world--someone will correct me, because by now there must be much more than that--many hundreds of organizations have joined the movement which is called Make Poverty History. That is to say, we have a unique opportunity here. 2005 is really a mark in which we can make huge decisions which will impact in the future of humankind. Let us not miss the opportunity.
The agenda has been tabled. The agenda has been proposed, and I'm still talking about the Africa Commission. And this has to engage all of us to see how best we can contribute to make it succeed. Please join, whether you are religious groups, whether you are professionals, whether you are women's networks, whoever you are. Get informed, get engaged with Make Poverty History, together with engaging institutions of this country.
And finally, I want to come to the end and say, we Africans, many times we are known by the challenges, the problems, and the difficulties we still face. I want to say, Africa and Africans are rich. They have been impoverished, but they are rich people in those kinds of soft ways which are hard to measure. Let me say we are rich in our peoples, our cultures. And it has been our peoples and our cultures which have sustained us all along through history. Otherwise, we wouldn't have survived the blows we have had. But we survive. We are still there. We have resilience. We are engaged because of the capacity of regenerating new energies, the capacity of reinventing ourselves of even adversity.
Let me tell you something: even today, with the combination of poverty and HIV/AIDS, without the strength of African communities, the sense of solidarity in reaching one another and working together even to invent solutions, we cannot always easy materially speaking, but go to African villages. You will not find these millions of orphans running around. They are somewhere in a family, in a community, which is taking care of them. It is not because we are rich materially, but we have that energy and capacity of embracing one another.
Think of Africa, the influence we have culturally in the world. You know things like music. Yes, it is true, many people in the world, they will echo and respond to a certain type of music, and it has its origin in African music. That is our software gift to the world, where you can communicate without using the language. But it's a different sort of language which speaks to the soul, the soul and the spirit of people.
I think we are, finally, we have a very sense, a very deep sense of human touch in everything we do. I'm not saying other peoples do not have. I'm saying these are strengths which we have. When we look at people, and we know that people count much more than things. Maybe because we are still very underdeveloped, people, human beings are precious, are more important than things, than money. And I think that is something Africa has to give as a gift to the rest of the world. In a world where development many times is associated to wealth, is associated to having, Africa offers in its development--is to be, it's more to be, then to have. And that's African strength. I think in the days of how to strike the balance, to strike the balance, these are strengths we Africans have to offer.
This generation of us have to make its own pledge. And have to make its own mark in history. And history will never forgive us, having achieved the level of knowledge we have, having achieved the level of scientific and technological progress, having been able to produce huge, huge amounts of financial resources, we have the knowledge, we have the capacity. There is no reason--there is no reason--why we have the millions dying because they have no food. Millions dying because they don't have clean water.
And of course, I couldn't name all those horrible things which are part of our life today. We have the knowledge. Our generation has the knowledge. Our generation has the capacity. Our generation has the means. We have to make a pledge of how we turn history so that we will be remembered as a generation of human, a deeply human solidarity, in which we feel, I am because you are; you are because I am. Thank you very much. [Applause]
It was too long. So how do we do now with questions? It wasn't only my fault. We started a bit late, didn't we? So we can still have some questions or not?
LYMAN: We'll take two. The Council has given us 10 extra minutes. Yes, lady right there. Please, if you would state your name and your affiliation, and please, brief, so we can have two.
QUESTION: Yes, I'm Lucy Komisar. I'm a journalist. In your discussion of Africa, you never mentioned that almost every country, with the exception perhaps of South Africa, perhaps Botswana, maybe there are one or two, if not democratic, that oppression is egregious, that corruption is overwhelming. How can any of the things you're talking about take place until you deal with this problem? And also, to what extent do you believe that the Western countries are complicit in it? Because a lot of the corruption, the oil corruption that has to do with Angola--you talked about using oil--the money is stolen. How do you deal with that?
HAASS: Well, I'd have to ask you to [inaudible].
QUESTION: Yes, OK.
HAASS: Thank you very much. We'll take one more. Do we have another one?
MACHEL: Yes, another one? [Laughter]
LYMAN: Yes, the gentleman right back there.
QUESTION: Hi. I just wanted to thank you for focusing on a number of the positive developments in Africa, and also ask a question on--
LYMAN: If you could identify yourself, please?
QUESTION: What's that?
LYMAN: Identify yourself.
QUESTION: Oh, sorry. Jake Bright. I'm with the Bank of New York. My question is, if you could comment a little on some efforts toward military coordination to deal with some of the unfortunate breakdowns of security that we've seen in Africa in places like Sierra Leone or Rwanda or Darfur?
LYMAN: We'll take just one more, the gentleman right there, and then we'll give you--
QUESTION: Henry Breed, United Nations. Thank you very much for the presentation. And I wanted to ask you about a constellation of forces that would follow on a bit from what you said. I'm thinking particularly of the role of women in environmental work, most of them through civic-society groups. [Environmentalist and Nobel Prize Laureate] Wangari Maathai, of course, is the first example that comes to mind, but there are many others. I'd like to hear your thoughts.
MACHEL: Thank you. Can I start with the journalist? How many African countries have you visited?
QUESTION: I have visited South Africa and [inaudible].
MACHEL: Oh. Then maybe before I try to answer this, because you are journalist, and because you are bound by your profession to conform to your facts before you make--no, not writing, or at least to make a statement, I think it would be good for you to visit Africa for you to--no, no, no. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. [Applause] I'm trying to say I think it's extremely grievous to say except South Africa and Botswana, there is no democracy in Africa. I don't know what kind of democracy we are talking about, but I mean, I would challenge that very, very seriously.
And if we can have time to talk maybe outside of this, if you are talking of democratic institutions which are through elections, et cetera, et cetera, I'm terribly sorry: two-third of African countries have democratic institutions. It's not all, it's not all. But I said two-thirds of them. Last year alone--last year alone, at least six countries have had elections recognized by [the] international community as clean and fair, et cetera, et cetera. You may not understand that democracy as the democracy you have, but that's what we are doing. And I would suggest that just visit, and do your--I'm sorry to say this--do your homework. Please do your homework, because I don't think you--I think that's factual. But we can talk outside. I can give you the list of countries which--they may have weak institutions, but they are democratic institutions. I can challenge that.
Now the issue of corruption, I think that's also something which is very--thank you for raising this. One of the problems in the West is generalization. It is true that we have corrupt countries, and I think it is true that we have corruption in this country. You can find corruption everywhere. But when it comes to Africans, all Africans are corrupt, it's not true. I want to tell you, it is not true. There are countries which are trying very hard to control corruption. I'm saying"control corruption," because I doubt whether there will be one, single country which can say,"We have no corruption at all." There are levels of corruption which are controllable and those which are not controllable. So I'm saying there are a range of countries in the continent which are controlling corruption, and they can stand shoulder to shoulder to shoulder with some developing countries.
It's not correct to generalize that Africa is corruption. It's not true. It is not true. Both in democracy, both in this issue of, how do you say, of corruption--thank you--that attitude of treating Africa as if it's one single country, I think it's totally wrong. We are 53 countries, 53. And even when it comes to economic performance, some African countries are realizing 7 percent of growth, for three, four, five years, consecutive years. They are in the effort of making the millennium goals, exactly because they are making a genuine effort. I think those countries should be recognized. They are not in the majority. But they are there, and statistics are there to prove it. Go to the World Bank, wherever you want, but you will get information that not all countries are sliding down. There are countries which are making progress. Some of them, they don't reach the 7 percent, but they are doing 4 percent, 3 percent. But the trend of growth is there.
So please, keep in mind we have 53 countries. So do your analysis on the basis of what is the trend. This is what I was talking about, the trend. And second, who is doing what? And democratic states are doing well.
Second, the military issue. Yes, I'm sorry I didn't mention this in my message today. One of the major achievements which are happening in the continent is that for the first time in history today, conflict is shrinking. It is shrinking. We have much less countries in conflict today than we have ever had. Yes, you can name it, it's true, we still have, I mean, Cote d'Ivoire. We still have--DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] is in a process, and you still have Sudan. But most of, like, countries which are out of conflict are in the process of rebuilding themselves. You can talk of Rwanda, you can talk of Sierra Leone, you can talk of Liberia, you can talk--they--Angola, even--countries which are out of conflict. They are still, I mean, striking the balance of how to consolidate democratic institutions, but there really is a process in which conflict--now, I'm talking of active conflict. Active conflict is shrinking in the continent.
And that is an effort which has been made as priority No. 1 by the African Union. I should have mentioned this in the political agenda. Priority No. 1 is to control conflict. And African leaders are leading the process, with the contribution of the international community, with the contribution of the United Nations. But the process is being led by Africans themselves. And I think that is what is important. Who is leading negotiations today in Sudan? Who is leading negotiations in Sierra Leone, leading negotiations in Somalia? Our African leaders. It's no longer crossing our hands and wait for United Nations to come and solve problems. I think that's the trend which I'm talking about, and I think it's extremely important.
And now we have a process--I'm sorry, I'm being long--a process of now coordinating efforts around the sub-regions, and so the sub-regions will be much closer to control, and even in terms of prevention, conflict when it emerges.
The last question is not really a question. It's just to strengthen what I was saying. There are big networks in the continent which are making progress. If this was in environment--Maathai is the first woman to receive the peace--the Nobel exactly on environment and mobilization of grassroots organizations. It's one of the positive examples. But you could find many, many, many other examples who did not have, I mean, the scope of the green belt, but they are there. And women's organization--just last week, we had a fantastic meeting of women in Senegal, exactly trying to strengthen the position of women in the continent.
So I think we are--we are tonight talking of the positive trends, which I think they have to be acknowledged and the values, without ignoring the challenges we have still to face. And this is what I've tried to [do]. I said I dream. [Applause]
LYMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, just one moment please. First of all, you have to agree that we certainly had the right speaker.
I want to just say a word of thanks. One woman who was so very helpful in making tonight possible, South Africa's wonderful ambassador to the United States, Barbara Masekela. [Applause] We also have here the South African permanent representative to the U.N., the Mozambiquan permanent representative to the U.N., and the consul general from New York. We also--I want to thank particularly three Council members: [inaudible]; Frank Ferrari, who worked so hard on this; and [Council New York Meetings Program Coordinator] Francesco Barbacci, who did so much to make everything work tonight. And I want to thank you all, everyone, for getting started with this magnificent lecture. And let us thank once again the magnificent Graca Machel. [Applause]
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