Deputy Minister, Hon. Mr Alvin Botes,
Deputy Minister, Hon. Ms Thandi Moraka,
Director General, Mr Zane Dangor,
Heads of Branches,
Senior Officials,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

Good Morning.

It is an honour to address this Departmental strategic planning session. This session offers an important moment to reflect on how the Department should be directed to implement the Seventh Administration’s strategic priorities.

As we begin our engagement, I encourage you to treat it not as an exercise in compliance or a rehearsal of what we already know. But rather as an opportunity to make a strategic effort to reposition our department and by extension our country.

We operate in a world that is in flux. The assumptions we have long held about the world are increasingly being called into question. The rulebook of diplomacy and the conventions governing international relations have, in many respects, been flung out the window. The world has been turned upside down.

Nearly two years since the GNU adopted the Statement of Intent, a commitment to a “foreign policy based on human rights, constitutionalism, the national interest, solidarity, peaceful resolution of conflicts, to achieve the African Agenda 2063, South-South, North-South and African cooperation, multilateralism and a just, peaceful and equitable world”, we must ask: how do we pursue the foreign policy envisaged in that Statement of Intent while also protecting, promoting and pursuing our national interest?

Our five-year Departmental strategic plan anticipates a fluid and unpredictable environment. It sets out the risks and opportunities for South Africa’s foreign policy in this context.

So today is about honest reflection. It is about measuring progress, and being clear about what we must do next so that our foreign policy advances the three strategic priorities of the Seventh Administration namely:

• To drive inclusive growth and job creation.
• To reduce poverty and tackle the high cost of living.
• To build a capable, ethical and developmental state.

I wish to offer three prompts for reflection to keep at the back of our minds through the day’s proceedings:

The first prompt for reflection is about South Africa’s story and DIRCO’s responsibility to tell it with confidence and conviction.

As the Department responsible for conducting and coordinating our country’s international relations at the bilateral, regional and multilateral levels, DIRCO is also the narrator of the South African story on the global stage.

In thirty years, we have built a democratic society and a constitutional order that puts the interests of citizens at the centre. We embraced a constitutional vision of a country where people live free from fear and want. We have made real progress in gradually realising rights that are not only on paper but felt in daily life: access to healthcare, shelter, security and opportunity.

We have also built a united country that takes its place with confidence as a sovereign state in the community of nations. The 30-year review of our democracy captures these achievements with concrete numbers.

We have leaned into our strengths as a diverse society. We have drawn on a painful past to help shape international norms on justice. We have offered the world the diplomacy of Ubuntu – an ethos that measures who we are by how we relate to others. That same ethos has shaped a foreign policy grounded in multilateralism, advancing peace and security through inclusive dialogue and the peaceful settlement of disputes on our continent and beyond.

Yet our story is not a linear story of uninterrupted success. Along the way, we have encountered obstacles. We have tripped and faltered.

To paraphrase the President in his reply to the State of the Nation Address, years of corruption and state capture eroded trust in public institutions, shook confidence in leadership and turned too many South Africans into cynics. It weakened our collective capacity to imagine a better future.

But we have since turned a corner. There are clear signs of economic recovery. Economic reforms are starting to produce results. Energy woes have subsided and promising developments are emerging in our network infrastructure.

That, too, is part of the unfolding South African story: the resilience of a people who refuse to surrender their future. Yet resilience is not only about survival. It is also about a shared understanding of our journey and a shared commitment to where we want to go.

That is why telling our story matters. It matters because others have been determined to tell South Africa’s story for us, often in bad faith, often reducing a complex country to a single narrative of failure.

Sections of our society have made significant efforts to discredit the democratic project itself. We cannot meet that narrative campaign only with a defensive posture.

In the conduct of our international relations, we have learnt that beyond geography, economics or military power, strong nations are held together by psychological and political factors: a shared sense of self, an honest relationship with their history, whether glorious or painful, and a common purpose and resolve about the future.

In this regard, our Constitution remains our lodestar. It sets out the kind of society we seek to build, and it honours the sacrifices of those who fought and perished for its attainment.

The National Development Plan sets out the work required to bring that society to fruition. And with less than five years to 2030, we must be clear-eyed about what remains undone. Our society is still deeply unequal. Too many people live in poverty. Too few have jobs. The shadow of apartheid still hovers over how our cities are built and how our economy functions.

So, the first point of reflection I want to put before you is this: have we, in dealing with the exigencies of the present, lost sight of the future we are meant to be building?

Because our task is not only to manage the present but to lead the country towards a future that is more equal, more secure, more productive and more just. We must ask ourselves, with seriousness and courage: what kind of future do we look forward to?

How do we get there? And once we have answered those questions, how do we tell that story clearly and convincingly to the world?

With that as our first point of reflection, let me move to the second prompt: how we avoid the trap of seeing only the status quo, and mistaking prevailing power relations for permanent realities.

In the last while, our country, along with other like-minded nations, has been seized with crafting responses to shifting geopolitical sands.

As outlined by President Ramaphosa at the 80th UN General Assembly and again in the SONA, these shifts have been marked by: the reality of great power contestation; unilateral trade practices and economic coercion; a retreat from multilateralism by some big powers; global military spending that has reached historic highs; transactional diplomacy that threatens African agency; sovereignty and territorial integrity coming under severe threat.

If we accept that any balance of power is naturally fragile and impermanent, are we doing enough to navigate this moment while not losing sight of the need to cast our eyes beyond what prevails today?

I believe we have crafted a range of interventions to help us pivot and adapt to these shifts. These steps are:

• Pursuing a more assertive trade agenda by opening new markets and concluding trade agreements that support growth and job creation
• Championing economic diplomacy by mobilising investment into South Africa, identifying opportunities for our firms abroad and refocusing foreign missions on trade and investment
• Adopting a whole-of-government approach and aligning key departments around a common trade strategy to promote South Africa’s national interest

Colleagues,

The great poet of South Africa’s freedom struggle, the late Keorapetse “Bra Willie” Kgositsile, reminds us: “When the clouds clear, we shall know the colour of the sky.”

Our task in this moment is to coordinate and execute our foreign policy through the clouds, without confusing the storm for the season, and without surrendering our right to shape what comes after.

My last prompt for reflection is about the third strategic priority of the Seventh Administration: building a strong South Africa with an ethical, capable and developmental state.

The Department, through its rich pool of skilled and capable public servants, continues to make a sterling contribution to the realisation of this priority through the execution of South Africa’s foreign policy.

I am keen to hear about the repositioning of our Diplomatic Academy as a centre of excellence in foreign service training, our efforts to mainstream the focus on women, youth and persons with disabilities, and how we are using digital tools to monitor and evaluate our bilateral agreements and communicate our work to domestic and international audiences.

This discussion should also cover the measures being taken to address the risks identified in the Auditor General’s report and the Portfolio Committee’s Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report, including on the IT modernisation project and asset management.

Let me conclude by reflecting on the words of two scholars, Lawrence Caromba and Abba Omar, who put the stakes of strategy more eloquently:

“A state can only achieve its long-term goals if it has a robust and inclusive domestic economy capable of supporting its diplomatic missions, its armed forces, and its economic statecraft. It is therefore imperative that state institutions are not captured by sectional interests and to ensure that SA’s economy is inclusive, equitable and continues to grow.”

They also remind us that although “these are usually issues falling within the ambit of domestic policy, they are also the foundations of a state’s grand strategy in the international arena.”

My sincere gratitude to you all for patriotism, dedication and commitment to serve the people of South Africa.

ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND COOPERATION

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