This is a summary of some of the draft ANC Policy Resolutions to be debated at the ANC’s National Congress in December 2002.
STRATEGY AND TACTICS
On Character of the NDR
The ANC needs to assert its positions clearly and firmly … including neo-liberalism and modern ultra-left tendencies and in the process articulate the movement’s positions as a force of the left, organised to conduct disciplined struggle in pursuit of the interests of the poor.
On Character of the ANC:
After 8 years of democracy:
there is still a challenge of ensuring that the ANC is the source and driver of programmes carried out in all terrains of struggle, including government.
ANC should build its capacity to interact with and guide, various social movements which pursue some of the interests of the motive forces
ANC should master the art of managing contradictions among the people
ANC needs to develop a corps of cadres steeped in its theory and culture.
On attacking poverty and comprehensive social security
Government must:
continue with its plans towards providing a comprehensive social security system
try and cover more children through child support grants by both removing obstacles in applying for them and by raising the age applicable for the child support grant; the school nutrition programme must be improved and possibly widened to cover secondary schools
deal with the effects of unemployment through a comprehensive public works programme
implement the integrated food security strategy to ensure food security at all times
prioritise the equitable distribution of the National Lottery Funds to identified vulnerable groupings, e.g. women, children, youth, the aged, and so forth and continually monitor the impact of gambling and the lottery on the poor.
On health
On National health insurance
Government must:
speed up the implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme to enhance equitable access by general public to health care and reduce the inequities between private and public health providers.
On Health care
Government must:
strengthen primary health care especially in rural areas, by improving the availability of doctors and nurses, especially in clinics.
Improve the management of hospitals and clinics with community participation.
Accelerate strategies for the training and retention of health professionals.
Ensure access to affordable medicines including speeding up the implementation of Act 90 of 97 on the implementation of generic substitution and parallel importation.
On HIV and AIDS
Government must:
strengthen and accelerate the implementation of the national AIDS strategy
provide infrastructure for monitoring and follow up of patients, the treatment of opportunistic infections and the use of anti-retrovirals where appropriate.
continue to fight discrimination by insurance companies of dependants of people who have died of AIDS related diseases.
reduce discrimination against infected and affected people and build psycho-social support, providing essential medical care, providing support to families caring for people living with AIDS and orphans and developing effective workplace programmes.
ANC to lead communities around HIV and AIDS especially around awareness, prevention, voluntary testing and counselling, treatment and home-based care.
On Human Resource Development
The ANC must:
accelerate its programme to address scarce skills, and to focus on building a black intelligentsia in particular, and progressive intelligentsia in general.
expand the provision of Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) and Early Childhood Development (ECD),
mobilise our structures, and communities behind the proposed transformation of all higher education institutions.
On Housing, Basic Services and Human Settlements
Government must:
speed up its social transformation programme to meet the basic needs of all people.
accelerate the water and sanitation programme to ensure that all are sustainably served with clean water by 2008, and that sanitation problems are eliminated by 2010, and sooner where possible with regard to both programmes.
implement our national water resource strategy, by promoting collection of rainwater and development of household vegetable gardening for food security.
expand the provision of housing to include social housing, rental housing, as well as appropriate housing for rural people, including the development of agricultural villages, and ensuring proper living conditions for farm workers.
to find mechanisms to curb the resale of RDP houses and redistributed land by beneficiaries, and to root out corruption to ensure that the people who are provided with housing are those who are really in need.
acquire state land to reverse Apartheid settlement patterns, and to develop non-racial human settlements.
develop a programme on the upgrading of existing informal settlements, ensure that they are located on land suitable and appropriate for human settlement and to curb the proliferation of new informal settlements.
Promote local road development and maintenance, especially rural roads and transport facilities, and to promote road safety programmes.
On Land Reform
Government must:
accelerate land reform, including for farmworkers
lead a popular campaign with other groupings for rural development.
mobilise to strengthen safety, security and access to justice for farmworkers.
On Youth
The ANC:
should implement youth programmes urgently to create hope among youth, enhance their employability, encourage them to do community service
On Infrastructure
Infrastructure development is the primary driver of economic growth and social development.
The Expanded Public Works Programme must, in the spirit of the 1995 agreement between labour, business and government, seek to:
Create assets for the poor
Create jobs for the unemployed
Create income generating opportunities for communities, and
Provide opportunities for skills development and training.
The Poverty Relief Fund must link with public works programmes to create short-term employment, use labour intensive methods and build community pride and self-reliance.
Government must establish clear programmes for infrastructure maintenance, facilitating access and ownership by our communities through empowerment of all our people particularly women, youth, people with disabilities and the unemployed.
In the spirit of Letsema, ANC branches should initiate campaigns to support and participate in infrastructure development programmes on the part of government. ANC structures should also build capacity to monitor these programmes. Our branches should also mobilise the community to understand and support the roll-out of free basic services for the poor, whose success will be dependent on a culture of payment for higher levels of consumption.
On transformation of the State
That the state retain strategic and regulatory control of the infrastructure for basic service delivery such as water, sanitation, access to facilities for communities.
On transformation of multilateral institutions
The ANC must campaign to:
have the mandate of the World Bank, IMF redefined to focus on fighting poverty and assist in building the economies of developing countries
make the World Bank, IMF and WTO more accountable.