The period since the Rio Earth Summit has been one of unprecedented global economic growth. Growth in the world economy in the year 2000 alone exceeded that during the entire nineteenth century.
Yet people continue to die of hunger; babies get born, grow up, and die without being able to read or write; many fellow humans do not have clean water to drink; and, people die of curable diseases. The gulf between rich and poor members of the human race widens as we speak.
The Johannesburg World Summit must take further our pledge at the Millennium Summit to eradicate poverty. It must focus on implementation and action. Its outcome must make sense to she who has to walk for kilometres to fetch drinking water and to she who spends hours gathering firewood for energy. It must also speak to he who consumes more than the earth can give.
When leaders of the world gathered here in 1992, my country was still under apartheid rule. I did not enjoy the right to vote. Uncertainty and conflict loomed.
But the human spirit triumphed. South Africa is now a democracy in which we live in harmony as we struggle to eradicate the legacy of over three hundred years of colonialism and apartheid. Since the victory of democracy in 1994, 7 million people have access to clean water, over 1 million homes for poor people have been built, over 2 million more homes now have electricity and every child has a place in school.
Yet people continue to die of hunger; babies get born, grow up, and die without being able to read or write; many fellow humans do not have clean water to drink; and, people die of curable diseases. The gulf between rich and poor members of the human race widens as we speak.
The Johannesburg World Summit must take further our pledge at the Millennium Summit to eradicate poverty. It must focus on implementation and action. Its outcome must make sense to she who has to walk for kilometres to fetch drinking water and to she who spends hours gathering firewood for energy. It must also speak to he who consumes more than the earth can give.
When leaders of the world gathered here in 1992, my country was still under apartheid rule. I did not enjoy the right to vote. Uncertainty and conflict loomed.
But the human spirit triumphed. South Africa is now a democracy in which we live in harmony as we struggle to eradicate the legacy of over three hundred years of colonialism and apartheid. Since the victory of democracy in 1994, 7 million people have access to clean water, over 1 million homes for poor people have been built, over 2 million more homes now have electricity and every child has a place in school.