We are humbled that Japan continues to strengthen its partnership with South Africa and the rest of the world, despite their current hardships brought about by the tsunami.
South Africa believes firmly in multilateralism and that our institutions of global governance must be reformed with a view to making them more representative and sensitive to the interests of the developing countries, as outlined in the 66th Session of the UN General Assembly.
South Africa continues to support the candidacy of the Finance Minister of Nigeria for the position of the presidency of the World Bank. Though she did not win this position, we nevertheless were convinced that this process should go on merit. In the same vein, we want to take this opportunity to congratulate the new President of the World Bank.
Our nonpermanent membership of the UN Security Council continues to consolidate our African agenda, with our President occupying the chairmanship of the UN Security Council for the month of January. During our President's chairmanship, we unanimously adopted a resolution on the co- ordination of peace and security work on the continent. We also adopted Resolution 2033. South Africa will continue to champion the African agenda, even in other minilateralists like the G20.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank members of the interministerial committee for the preparations for and hosting of COP 17, in particular the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs and South Africans at large. We managed to adopt the historic Durban Platform for Enhanced Action and preserve the Kyoto Protocol. We continue to be the chair of COP 17 until we hand over the presidency and will defend the gains of the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action until we hand over in Qatar later this year.
South Africa, led by the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs, will be attending the Rio+20 summit remembering that in between this and Rio 1992 there was Durban and the 10th anniversary of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. We are also mindful of the fact that our President was the Chair of the Global Sustainability Panel of the UN Security Council.
The Department of International Relations and Co-operation continues to implement on our mandate, informed by the spirit of working as "Team Dirco". We also champion the "I am a true South African diplomat" motto. Our protocol branch in the department continues to work with all other sector departments to ensure that we host successful conferences and summits in this country.
South Africa continues to champion the African agenda through the African Renaissance Fund, which will be dissolved into the SA Development Partnership Agency, Sadpa, later in the year.
Today, many countries in our region that are former colonies of Portugal are celebrating 30-odd years of their freedom resulting from the Carnation Revolution. I want to refer, in particular, to the independence of Angola and Mozambique in 1975, which opened a new chapter for our struggle for freedom. We take this opportunity to also thank all other countries and the AU for the role they played with regard to our freedom. As we acknowledge the role played by Algeria in our struggle for freedom, we also extend our condolences to the people of Algeria on the passing away of their first democratically elected president, His Excellency Ahmed Ben Bella. May his soul rest in peace.
Let me conclude by saying that as many of our country celebrate the 50th anniversary of the OAU next year, we should remember what our stalwart and late ANC president, O R Tambo, said to the Liberation Committee in Arusha, Tanzania:
Africa is pledged to the total liberation of our continent. Accordingly, she has an obligation to continue to mobilise the necessary political and material resources to ensure that this objective is achieved in Namibia and South Africa. The OAU, itself an eminent product of Africa's liberation, remains the one vehicle we have at our disposal to co- ordinate and mobilise this continental effort aimed at the completion of the task of finally expunging colonialism and racist domination from our continent, consolidating our independence and proceeding with our development programme.
Yes, I can confirm that with South Africa and Namibia now free, Africa is indeed on the rise. [Applause.]