INLSA

International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, President of this years UN climate talks, hails from rural Limpopo, which explains her concern for rural communities and women of the African continent in particular, who are threatened by climate change.

Leanne Jansen

leanne.jansen@inl.co.za

International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, president of the UN climate talks, hails from rural Limpopo – an upbringing which is credited with shaping her thinking and her approach to issues of sustainable development and climate change.

In a dinner address in Pretoria earlier this month, the 48-year-old mother of four, who has been described as someone who smiles readily, spoke of her concern for rural communities and women of the African continent in particular, who are threatened by climate change.

“In rural communities women are largely dependent on natural resources and agriculture for their livelihoods. For these women, climate change will mean that the supply of natural resources will be threatened”.

According to the office of Nkoana-Mashabane, her responsibilities as president of the 17th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP17) are to get the more than 190 parties to agree to a comprehensive set of outcomes.

In this role, she is guided by principles of the negotiation process, which include multilateralism, transparency, inclusivity, fairness and the honouring of all international commitments and undertakings made in the climate change process, the ministry has stated. Or, as Nkoana-Mashabane has previously been quoted as saying: “My role as the incoming president of the conference of COP17 is to encourage the parties to talk to one another and to find common ground”.

As head of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, Nkoana-Mashabane is no stranger to green matters. Issues of sustainable development, including climate change, negotiated at international forums such as the UN and its Framework Convention on Climate Change are a direct responsibility of her department.

“The minister was at COP16 in Mexico in 2010 and is no stranger to the subject of climate change in as far as its prominence at international forums is concerned,” the ministry responded when asked whether COP17 was Nkoana-Mashabane’s first real foray into climate change.

On the possibility of reaching resolution, the minster has previously stated that Durban “is clearly the end of the line for the postponement of key political issues”.

“For Durban to be successful, we have to do more than making the Cancun agreements operational. We have no option but to deal with the outstanding political issues remaining from the Bali Roadmap. This means finding a resolution to the issue of the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol and agreeing on the legal nature of a future climate change system,” she said.

Nkoana-Mashabane has also previously cited late Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai as someone to draw courage from. The minister quoted Maathai at the same event in Pretoria, saying “her legacy will always live with us”.

“This shows how important the empowerment of women is in order to mitigate challenges if not threats posed by climate change. She (Maathai) would be among us and supporting this theme as she does in the words I have just quoted. She would also agree with the COP17 theme, that Working Together: Saving Tomorrow Today. The spirit of collectives (of working together) is the African way of life”.

Nkoana-Mashabane, a former Limpopo housing MEC, was the first post-apartheid high commissioner to Malaysia, in 1995. She was also the first woman foreign diplomat in that country, servicing the Philippines and Brunei.

In May 2009, she was appointed to her current position.