Address by Pali Lehohla: Statistician-General South Africa and Chair of ASSD at the 9th Africa Symposium on Statistical Development held in Botswana
Vice President of Botswana, the Honourable Ponatshego Kedikilwe,
The Honourable Minister,
Makgosi a rona a matle ke re pula,
The Permanent Secretary,
The UN Statistics Director,
The Statistician General of Botswana,
The AU,
The ECA,
The AfDB,
Civil Registrars and Chief Statisticians,
UN family,
Diplomatic Corps
Let me read from Wilbur Smith: The Burning Shore about shasa "His arrows will fly to the stars and when men speak his name it will be heard from far. And he will find precious water, wherever he travels, he will find precious water. His bright eye will pick out the game when other men are blind.
Effortlessly he will follow the spoor over rocky ground. And he will find precious water at every camp site he will find precious water. Prettiest maidens will smile and tiptoe to this camp fire in the night. And he will find precious water, wherever he goes, he will find precious water.
Your Honourable, Mr Vice-President, Deep Precious Water (shasa) is the metaphorical answer for implementing Strategies for Harmonisation of Statistics in Africa (SHaSA) and thus answering Africa's development problems.
Your Honourable, Mr Vice-President, we are honoured to be holding the 9thASSD hosted here in Gaborone Botswana, a country of such magnificent and outstanding heritage in our continent, we got the shasa.
It is the forefathers of this nation who took initiatives that would protect this country from the obliteration that was sweeping through Africa at the time, a destruction that had devastating effects and entailed loss of leg and limb, human dignity and even paying the ultimate price, loss of life.
Notwithstanding the debilitating effect of divide and rule meted ruthlessly by our colonial masters, the former and late President Sir Seretse Khama of Botswana would later rise to the challenge, when addressing the Botswana Teachers’ Union in 1966, and he said:
“They [people] take comfort in the sense of identity which they derive from family and hence from tribe. This is understandable but it becomes dangerous when it leads people to think in exclusively tribal terms.”
We can be certain that Africa would be doomed had we not had such esteemed words from Sir Seretse Khama who forever shall be remembered for establishing pillars of sustained democracy in Botswana. A country which is a shining example defining as a lie the natural necessity of common place experience and history of coup de tat in Africa.
Botswana tells us that coup de tats are manmade artefacts of concentrated economics gone wrong, of politics gone wrong. The rest of Africa took a long and painful detour to realise that democracy delivers transparency and accountability, results and transformation. Indeed it is the same kind of goods that statistics delivers, transparency, accountability, results and transformation.
Through this deep precious water, SHaSA, there will be better decisions for better policy outcomes, a better life for citizenry. We need to dig deep for knowledge and understanding. We need to dig deep for shasa. Botswana has delivered to us the shasa.
On a hot December ten days before Christmas in 2009 after a pan-African meeting on statistics in East London-South Africa, a smaller group of seven pan-Africans including four Young African Statisticians, one of whom is now the President of Young African Statisticians and a member of StatsSA staff, Akhona Nkenkana, met at Statistics South Africa in Pretoria to document the pan African Strategy for the Harmonisation of Statistics in Africa, SHaSA.
It was the inquisitive minds of the team that sought to understand what the acronym we just coined SHaSA might stand for. Alas as we googled and we were excited in that it is a Khoi and San name meaning "deep precious water." How apt then in that the acronym SHaSA which stands for Strategy for the Harmonisation of Statistics in Africa means deep precious water.
The Khoi and the San in the Kalahari habitat strive for deep precious water, shasa, to quench their thirst and for their survival. Africa needs deep precious statistics to quench the thirst for development. Such deep precious statistics will not fall like manna, they will be sustainable when etched in the young brains, the Young African Statisticians. The task for Africa is greater, in particular in the post-2015 agenda.
The question is whether Africa will realise a demographic dividend? Will Africa arrest the window of opportunity. We need to tap the wisdom of the Khoi and the San about the deep precious water, shasa. They no doubt will say the knowledge and instruments for finding and digging for deep precious water, shasa, rest in deliberate and sustained passing on of knowledge and skills to the future.
Thus the task of focusing on the Young African Statisticians remains a matter of an informed self-interest and thus should address our massive problem of understanding and resolving Africa's development problems through scientific diagnostics, prognosis and prescription within a democratic framework of governance. This is Africa's shasa all of which we can learn from your government Mr Vice President and from the Khoi and the San in your land.
Africa can only succeed if we tackle the challenges that face us as a collective. Many outstanding sons and daughters of Africa have held their fort when it demanded most to ensure that we inherit the continent that we have today and its shasa. Some of them are no more.
Nelson Mandela reminded us of the task we face when he received the results of the Census ’96, the first democratic census of South Africa emerging out of a dehumanising apartheid. Madiba, as he was fondly referred to, said that whites will not rule South Africa again never again. That way, he reinvigorated us to strive hard to put any forms of colonialism and discrimination behind us. The task is even bigger, especially in the field of measurement.
Africa has had her intricate interface with issues of measurement, especially those in relation to official statistics such as undertaking censuses. African history has always been focused on preservation of culture and heritage. Both people and livestock have played a critical role in the management of wealth.
It stands to reason why most cultures believe that counting will draw to them the attention of the evil spirits; and as a result of the counting, some of them will meet their untimely demise by dying sooner.
We will not forget the experience of the colonial Congo state officials in 1908 when they faced resistance of the locals to be counted for tax purposes; the officials thought the people were resisting tax whereas they were resisting to be counted. Similar experiences were noted among the Masai, Akamba, Sania Galla, and Kikuyu tribes as well as the San and the Khoi of Southern Africa.
Africa is complex. We may draw from 1979 advice that the supreme Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping gave the then British Governor of Hong Kong, Murray MacLehose, that:
“If you think governing Hong Kong is hard, you ought to try governing China.”
Vice-President,
We are pleased to report that through the ASSD, Africa has rapidly mobilised itself to have Africa count in the 2010 Round of Censuses. To this end Uganda is counting after postponing its census twice. Angola needs to be cheered as it goes to count in May this year after four decades without a count of its citizens.
Somalia is undertaking surveys to estimate its population as we speak. The DRC has missed the 2010 round but its preparations are so advanced that Africa will converge there in 2015 to close the count and deliver on the commitment for Africa counts in the 2010 Round of Censuses. In this regard through the Strategies for Harmonisation of Statistics in Africa we got the shasa, the deep precious water.
But now that we have closed or are closing the chapter on censuses, we are opening a new leaf, one on civil Registration and Vital Statistics but the focus of the ASSD on civil registration will end next year as well, during the 10th ASSD. As that happens, civil registration might again remain like an orphaned child as we, official statisticians, reel back to our regular products and series in the field of measurement.
If that were to happen, both national statisticians and civil registrars will have abdicated of one prime responsibility. The area of Civil Registrations is a one in which Botswana stands tall like it does its enduring history of democracy.
It constitutes the metaphorical deep precious water, shasa, from which many on the continent and yonder will come and drink. Success is a terrible thing because it breeds success and brings with it additional responsibilities beyond your own borders.
The deep precious water of the Khoi and the San is now sought by the continent in your land. In this regard your Excellency it might be desirable for Botswana to consider carrying part of the burden of its success as a component of its pan-African responsibilities in the area of Civil Registration.
Vice-President,
It would harm if this critical field of measurement has no country providing the badly needed focal point services. Our experience as South Africa being the secretariat of the ASSD have proven beyond doubt and any shadow of doubt that a continental programme works and delivers better when it has a strong driven and led country anchor.
No doubt this comes with financial responsibility for the host country. But the cost of not doing so is quite immense: it may end up like the road not taken as the renowned Robert Frost would have liked to remind us. We are Africans and we cannot fail.
We wish to thank you the Vice President the Honourable Ponatshego Kedikilwe and the Government of Botswana for stepping up to the challenge to host the 9th ASSD even at such short notice. Through shasa we shall implement SHaSA.
I thank you. Pula!
