The article by Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) missed an opportunity to use this important platform to outline in practical ways the importance of international relations in the lives of average South Africans. In the midst of her rhetoric about how SA’s foreign policy has come a long way she fails to respond to a question she herself poses about what trade and diplomatic relations mean to the unemployed graduates of South Africa. I wish the Minister had written an insightful and analytical article on how foreign relations can enable the creation of decent jobs for the unemployed graduate rather than offer us regurgitation and a hasty cut and paste exercise from the department’s strategic plan (available to everybody to read). It left me wondering, what’s the point? Would it have been too difficult to make her article practical and illustrate to the unemployed graduates; How the policy commitments made in 2009 are improving their plight, What are the key projects in place that are addressing this issue of unemployed graduates, What work opportunities for this group have resulted from the R200bn worth of trade between South Africa and China in 2012, and What has been the value of expanding South African Missions’ footprint from 34 to 126? The turning point in our foreign policy should be that it can be measured like any science. It is not a nice to have but a tool that can change lives and should be approached as such. We cannot continue doing tasks for the sake of doing them and feed people rhetoric instead of hardcore results on the investments we are making. I am certain a lot is happening in the foreign relations’ sphere (especially those facilitated by DIRCO),but can the Minister please articulate in practical terms how these efforts are addressing the domestic challenges in South Africa.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 13:26:26 +0000