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a. Financing for sustainable development
 

By Mphumelelo Mdluli winner of the WSSD competition

At the gathering of the civil society at Nasrec during the WSSD one of important themes discussed was the financing for sustainable development. The bone of contention was how developing countries can generate some of the resources they need for sustainable development, and how the private sector, donors, and local communities can contribute to this effort. The discussion was particularly focused on finding innovative ways that will encourage effective sustainable financing whether through public, private or public-private approaches.

Moreover the discussion focused on how developing countries (including Swaziland) can generate resources within sectors that are particularly critical for sustainable development without causing environmental damage. Three key speakers explained options that can be used in each of the three ways of generating finances for sustainable development (i.e. public, private and public-private approaches). A lot of arguments that were for and against each approach were raised and discussed. It is up to people and governments to decide on an approach that best suits them.

For Swaziland one can suggest that the public-private approach could be adopted. This is because both the public and the private sectors have critical roles to play in financing sustainable development. It would be wise to use this approach so that the good part of each approach can be used and the bad part eliminated. Such an approach could be used to finance for example, water, which is a critical and finite resource everyone living thing depends on. Further water is critical in development projects. One such project water is critical is irrigated farming of sugarcane implemented by SKPE. A successful project is that one which is able to sustain itself. In the SKPE project a nominal fee is levied as way of recouping income and also enforcing responsible usage of the water on the part of the beneficiaries. However, this system needs to be controlled so that beneficiaries are not charged high water charges, which could be beyond their reach. This is why the combination of the public and private approaches is necessary. 

This therefore calls for the public sector, which is government to come up with policies to guide the implementation of this approach. For a start organisations such as a NGOs that are involved in development projects need to make proposals to government for the use of the above approach in financing sustainable development.

b. It is everyone’s responsibility to improve the lives of the poor, the vulnerable and the oppressed

By Dudu Dube Journalist at Times of Swaziland

Millions of people are threatened with famine in SADC. As civil society representative as a well as a journalist, I realised that it is everyone’s responsibility to improve the lives of the poor, vulnerable and oppressed. Thousands of delegates that took part in the WSSD agreed that action must lead the way. In this regard Swaziland as a participant in the WSSD must take action to implement agreements she was party to. For example halving the number of people lacking clean drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015; halving poverty by 2015 and pushing for effective mechanisms to deal with poverty reduction.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan at the summit emphasised that sustainable development need not wait for tomorrow’s technology break through. In other words he meant that we should take action now as the year 2015 is not far as it may seem.