Deputy Minister Bernice Swarts: South Africa’s intervention at the Heads of State Summit for the 1st Africa Biodiversity Summit

Madam Chair, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

Today marks the beginning of an end of an era where Africa’s rich natural resources were predestined and pre-routed to specific colonial powers following the Berlin Conference in 1884. It was in this Conference that the colonisers sought to create pseudo borders of ownership, allowing various foreign powers to claim almost the entire African continent and her resources.

Your Excellencies, Africa’s combined GDP is conservatively estimated at USD 2.8 trillion, but the continent remains the poorest in the world by purchase power parity (PPP). A study by a well-renowned academic and economic anthropologist, Prof Jason Hickel et al., shows that there remains an unequal exchange of economic growth in the “advanced economies”, which largely depends on the cheap, large net appropriation of resources and labour from the “developing economies”. Hickel’s study asserts that between 1960 and 2021, the advanced economies raked in natural resources from the developing economies worth over USD 152 trillion in raw material form.

The above study is a rude awakening to the African continent whose average debt-to-GDP ratio is estimated at around 61–64% in 2025, yet it is considered by the rating agencies to be a riskier investment platform. Meanwhile, the debt-to-GDP ratios of advanced economies range from 59% to over 100% of GDP, yet they are found to be stable platforms for investment and thus qualify for lower interest repayment rates for their debts.

Your Excellencies, we are at a pivotal moment where biodiversity offers solutions for climate adaptation, where nature is our beacon of hope, and where we must protect ecosystems so that they continue to provide essential services. It is imperative that we build momentum from this Summit to strengthen our resolve for self-sufficiency as a continent. Africa must innovate, industrialise and participate at all levels of the value chain of her natural resources, whilst applying economic modalities that support thriving people and nature.

Enquiries:
Thobile Zulu-Molobi
Cell: 082 513 7154
E-mail: tmolobi@dffe.gov.za

Chelsey Wilken
Cell: 074 470 5996
E-mail: cwilken@dffe.gov.za

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