Speech by the Deputy Minister of the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services, Honourable Prof. Hlengiwe Mkhize During the Occasion of Women in ICT Awards at Durban City Hall
Programme Director;
Ms Buyi Buthelezi – Founder OF Women in ICT;
Mdu Mkhonza – BITF;
Adrian Beemiah – EOH;
Zandile Maseko – IBM;
Ms Palesa Phili – Vodacom;
Awardees;
Ladies and gentlemen.
Introduction
I would like to congratulate Ms Buyi Buthelezi, who had a dream that black people who manage to couch a niche in the ICT Sector should be encouraged, congratulated, affirmed and supported for growth in the sector.
Focus on women is key to government’s inclusive and competitive agenda for women given their numbers in society in general. Although the good story is beginning to emerge, an inclusive agenda needs to be driven decisively, throughout the value chain e.g. education for critical skills, SMME development, software development, manufacturing of mobile phones, wires and cables to networks.
You already have champions in the ICT sector. On the 12th of August 2015, tribute was paid to Africa’s leading women in Technology – from Yasmin Belo-Osagie and Afus Osei whose company aptly called “She Leads Africa” has built an online platform to provide female entrepreneurs across the African Continent with financing, knowledge and networking opportunities aimed at building their businesses.
Judith Owigar whose company provides an online and mobile directory for blue-collar workers in Kenya, to our own Annette Muller – founder of DotNxt delivering digital development projects for South African companies – and Funke Opeke who served as MTN Nigeria’s Chief Technology Officer prior 2007 and whose company raised over R3billion to build the pioneer private submarine cable system in West Africa.
The contribution of the ICT Sector to the South African GDP
Our SA Connect Policy, places the Department in a position to coordinate and support the targets to achieve 100% broadband penetration by 2020 as well as transforming 70% of all front-line service to e-Service by 2019.
In more detail, our targets in terms of the NDP are to achieve 100% broadband penetration by 2020.
Broadband access in Mega Bits per Second (Mbps) per user experience is estimated to be:
- 50% at 5 Mbps by 2016 and
- 90% at 5 Mbps by 2020
- 50% at 100Mbps by 2020
- 100% at 10Mbps by 2030
- 80% at 100Mbps by 2030.
For schools the targets are:
- 50% at 10 Mbps by 2016
- 100% at 10Mbps by 2020
- 80% at 100Mbps by 2020
- 100% at 1 Giga Bits per Second (Gbps) by 2030.
For health facilities the targets are:
- 50% at 10Mbps by 2016;
- 100% at 10Mbps by 2020,
- 80% at 100Mbps by 2020; and
- 100% at 1Gbps by 2030.
The targets for public sector facilities are:
- 50% at 10Mbps by 2016;
- 100% at 10Mbps by 2020,
- 80% at 100Mbps by 2020; and
- 100% at 1Gbps by 2030.
There are huge benefits that can be realized after optimum levels of connectivity have been reached. Connectivity comes with benefits such as:
1. Cultural Diversity and Identity – the increased use of ICTs breaks down the communication barriers and positively contributes towards social cohesion
2. Linguistics Diversity – given the multiple languages which our country has, the use of ICTs helps in the development of ICTs specific to our domestic languages. This in turn challenges developers to be more innovative when it comes to software and program development.
3. Local Content – The increase use of ICTs will drive the demand for local content, as many people are empowered in making use of ICTs there will then be a need for the creation of more content or data services to further strengthen e-government.
4. Economic Inclusion – The increased use of ICTs will result in more job opportunities created in areas such as software development, maintenance and innovation.
Within the telecommunications sector, the role of Internet-related economic inputs continues to grow in significance. There are huge opportunities in the ICT Sector linked to our South Africa Connect, National Broadband Policy. These are based on the following policy pillars:
Digital readiness - laying the foundations for our broadband future. The creation of an enabling policy and regulatory environment is key to the successful outcome of this national project.
Digital future – This will include a strategy to encourage public and private investment in the next generation broadband network in a manner that will initiate long term collaboration to establish a globally competitive national broadband network.
Digital development - addressing needs and ensuring sustainable rollout. Public sector demand will be aggregated to provide economies of scale and scope to procure discounted, high quality services to meet the needs of public sector users. This will simultaneously serve the communication needs in critical areas and enable network extensions in areas that are unconnected and where market forces alone may not result in the network builds by network operators.
Digital Opportunity – Extension of broadband access throughout the country is a necessary condition for digital inclusion and innovation, but it is not sufficient. Realising the benefits of a world-class broadband infrastructure requires complementary policy action related to skills, research and development (R&D), innovation and entrepreneurship; to content and applications as well as to ensuring demand.
To appreciate the benefits of the “The Power to Connect and Providing Access for All” policy, government is driving the e-strategy. The current approved budget for Broadband rollout in the country is in excess of R740 million over a 3 year period which will be used to cover schools and other government institutions. Of the R740 million, government has allocated R200 million to begin connectivity in the eight districts in this current financial year. At a provincial and metropolitan level broadband rollout is driven by Premiers and they have their own budget allocation for laying cables and increasing bandwidth in their provinces.
e-Skilling is a critical step towards the creation of information society. The development of the National e-Strategy came as one of the recommendations of the National ICT Policy Review. The National ICT Policy Review process was finalised and endorsed in March 2015.
The development of a National e-Strategy calls for collaboration and consultation between the public and private sectors. The Department is also influenced by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) which calls for member states to develop their national e-strategies.
The far-reaching goal of implementing these e-services is to ensure that broadband and ICTs are included among the sustainable development goals of the post 2015 developmental agenda as the follow up to the Millennium Development Goals.
The Department of Basic Education is focused on getting the basics right through the Operation Phakisa Programme. The programme identifies challenges in the education system then bring all expects under one roof to diagnose the extent of the challenge and identify rapid results.
Operations Phakisa has five work streams namely curriculum and digital content; teacher development and support; ICT infrastructure; eAdministration and Build environment. The Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services chairs the ICT work stream. This means that we are responsible for mobilisation and support of all the ICT service providers in e-education, from end-user devices to internet connectivity.
The Internet economy contributes 2% to South Africa's GDP. This contribution is rising by 0, 1% per year and it is planned to reach 2,5% by 2016. The total spent by consumers, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), and Government on products and services via the Internet as well as on Internet access and infrastructures is estimated to be R59 billion. The internet economy will over time potentially become one of the new building blocks of the South African economy. This opens a flurry of opportunities for industry to be more innovative to create more internet-related jobs and skills.
It is important for SMMEs to be familiar with the mandate of our agencies. A simple example is our agency, .ZADNA which is responsible for registering websites which is critical to small businesses. Online presence can be a powerful marketing tool which can also fast-track access to international markets.
Why Do Women Lack Critical Skills
ICT skills are lost early in our system education system. Girls are intimidated by barriers such as male domination in subjects like mathematics, technology and science.
In countries across the entire globe, there is recognition of the potential of ICT as a tool for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. At the same breath a “gender divide” has also been identified, reflected in the low access and usage of ICT services by women compared with men. Unless this gender divide is specifically addressed, there is a risk that ICT may exacerbate existing inequalities between women and men and create new forms of inequality. If, however, the gender dimensions of ICT—in terms of access and use, capacity-building opportunities, employment and potential for empowerment—are explicitly identified and addressed, ICT can be a powerful catalyst for political and social empowerment of women, and the promotion of gender equality.
The Adoption of the BBBEE ICT Council
As one of our transformation tools the BBBEE legislation remains key to the development of the South African economy especially a sector as delicate as the Telecommunications Sector. The adoption of the BBBEE ICT Sector Code ICT Council is at its advanced stage. An ICT Sector Code Council shall be established to with the purpose to oversee or monitor the implementation of the ICT BEE Sector Code by the ICT sector including, but not exclusively the following functions:
- provision of guidance on matters affecting BEE in the ICT sector;
- compilation of reports on the status of broad-based BEE in the ICT sector;
- sharing of information with approved accreditation agencies relevant to BEE
- in working together with industry expects and government we believe that our joint effort will bring about the desired for a transformed ICT Sector to fruition.
Gender Equality and Mainstreaming in Technology
On August 19, I launched the Gender and ICT Strategy that is, amongst other things, looking at ensuring that women are by all means included in the ICT sector. This Gender and ICT Strategy will focus on all women in the country as history reminds us that women were more oppressed during the apartheid era. It should help us respond to many of the challenges women face, and a special focus will be given to address these challenges in each of the priority areas.
The two strategies were developed from the United Nations’ programme called Gender Equality and Mainstreaming in Technology which focuses on the inclusion of women in the ICT Sector.
The status of women with disabilities makes them vulnerable to violence - especially sexual violence. The department will thus ensure that there are dedicated programmes towards addressing the needs of women with disabilities through the implementation processes of the Gender and ICT Strategy, including access to economic empowerment opportunities, jobs and ICT skills development. In addition, our industry has also come up with innovative technologies so as to ensure that disability is not a hindrance.
The BBBEE Legislation is not only meant to address the inclusion of black people in relevant sectors but specifically the inclusion of women, rural people and the disabled in the mainstream economy.
Social Impact of ICTs
The technologies we are talking about could be utilised to add value to our socio-cultural programmes which are critical for nation building. In the North West Province for instance, the department has partnered with Telkom, Intel, Deloitte and School Net to develop an interactive website for the women in the community of Tlhabane, Rustenburg. This website is controlled by women and is used to address issues facing women and girl child, specifically, gender based violence.
Training has been provided to women and their leaders have been trained as super users of the website. Intel and Deloitte developed the website whilst School Net provided the resources for the training component of the program. This project was branded Lwazi - Digital Literacy Training (www.lwazi-ict.co.za).
The agreement on the beginning of the project was that:
Deloitte will have an interactive website developed for the women in the community. The website will have all the information about the community, including an interactive chat medium for women to communicate resulting in a support structure for women in the community. Content, pictures, and links to other important structures for women will also be available. The site will be developed in consultation with the community leadership. In addition, this site will be available via mobi (Smartphone's, tablets & iPads).
Together with the development of the site, a domain needs to be registered to secure the site name, including the hosting of the site for the community followed by internet connectivity. Telkom has provided all of this, in addition a WIFI range in the area for easy access. The community will identify a location where the main connectivity will be.
There is need for the creation of applications which will capture our rich cultural heritage such as music, cultural attire, African dance, etc. which can be used at a community level to socialize the youth.
The department has a Programme of Action which includes:
An audit of all programmes that support the development of ICT applications, and in particular the development of applications that support e-Government; as well as interfacing with formal RDI systems to collaborate, influence and direct these efforts towards the development of ICT applications that support e-Administration, e-Health and e-Education, as prioritized in SA Connect.
ICT is an indispensable tool in the highly globalized, knowledge economy. Market access constraints facing SMMEs include; poor quality products, lack of knowledge to explore niche markets, limited resources to promote their products and poor market research.
ICT can improve market access by facilitating communication with customers, competitive positioning, enable information acquisition and production of quality products, generation of market information, reduction in logistic costs, facilitating access to global markets, facilitating market research, networking, market transactions and market identification.
One of the things highlighted during the ICT workshop for SMMEs conducted by the Department was access to markets and marketing information, particularly for Women, remains a severe constraint to SMMEs development and competitiveness. The overall aggregate demand is low; markets are saturated due to dumping and overproduction, and in most cases markets do not function well due to lack of information and high transaction costs.
This confines majority of SMMEs to narrow local markets characterized by intense competition. It is therefore very critical that SMMEs are able to harness the power of technology in order to reach new markets and frontiers. The broad reach of ICT offers an effective platform for digital marketing.
The full benefit of digital marketing can only be achieved through digital inclusion and the bridging of the gender digital divide. The Government Broadband policy is currently in the implementation phase to ensure that the much needed universal access particularly to the marginalized groups such Women in SMMEs is achieved.
Education and Training for Critical Skills
This multi-billion sector grows at a faster rate and as a result future skills of ICT are unknown. One needs to constantly keep up. The future growth of the industry depends on skills.
Skill gaps are a key constraint to innovation, hindering productivity, growth and economic development. These shortages in the supply of trained professionals in disciplines related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) weakens the innovation potential of a society. Investing in mathematics, engineering and science subjects is essential to promote equality of employment opportunities and strengthen economic growth.
There are ample opportunities provided through government programmes for women to participate shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts:
Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs)
The relevant Seta for the ICT Sector is the MICT Seta which is responsible for the provision of ICT work place skills. We are in discussion with the Department of Higher Education and Training that two of their Further Education and Training (FET) be dedicated for ICT Training.
We hope that in your initiatives you will work closely with the already established innovation centers. During our budget vote speech we strongly canvased the establishment of Techno Hubs at a local level. We encourage new entrants to actively participate in initiatives like this one and become active promoters of ICTs. There are untapped opportunities about our villages whereby we can portray them as centers of attraction and information for the promotion of community tourism.
Radical Economic Transformation
The ruling party has since 2010 been saying it can’t be business as usual. The expectation is that each sector has to navigate its transformation agenda and define what is seen as radical for them. As a measure towards this, we aim to create hundred black industrialists in the next three years, who will participate in the productive sectors of the economy.
Measures towards the realization of this includes reforms to the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPPFA), customizing incentive schemes offered by government and its agencies, launching a new financial support scheme suitable for black industrialists and the establishment of an advisory panel on black industrialists.
This remains a big challenge especially in the ICT Sector. Although we have all these interventions we all still have to apply our minds to come up with ways in which even new entrants can add value to the ICT Ecosystem.
South Africa has a history and a record of making huge commitments with sustainable impact. For instance the government used its regulatory and policy measures, including spectrum allocation and the raising of call termination rates, to support the incubation and massive growth of the first two mobile operators, i.e. MTN and Vodacom and then later Cell C and Virgin Mobile.
South Africa has been outpaced by other African countries such as Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania. In these African countries, there has been a trend of adopting mobile banking and financial services with a diversity of products for the poor rural communities quicker.
Some of the inherent issues are the fact that interest rates here in South Africa are still too high and as a result SMEs do not qualify for credit meanwhile it is also difficult for them to get benefits such as health insurance schemes for their employees. There is therefore a need for SMEs to integrate all together and work as a team.
Some of the key lessons we can take from other African countries include:
- Digital Disruption still “controlled” by Banks not Networks
- Financial Inclusion products such as SME loans are still expensive /unaffordable from Banks and Micro lenders
- Risk Assessment based on collateral still main yardstick within Banks
- Lending and savings based on collectives still largely outside Formal Banking (e.g. stokvels)
- Insurance based on individuals and not groups still expensive
- Insurance using Brokers, Expensive Infrastructure and Marketing Campaigns too expensive
- Payment Systems still controlled by Banks with transaction fee and high interest business model
Local Procurement and Preferential Procurement
Local procurement and increased domestic production will be at the center of efforts to transform our economy and will be buoyed by a government undertaking to buy 75% of goods and services from South African producers.
Conclusion
These are some of the important issues which make us excited in supporting the awards. If there could be more recognition and support in addition to other interventions, the ICT sector will realise the desired growth.
We applaud the organisers for orchestrating this Province's only awards aimed at rewarding the twin ideals of innovation and transformation seek to recognize progressive individuals who have changed the game play when it comes to ICT in both the public and private sectors. We hope that what was presented today is an expose which will be used to set targets for the winners of next year.
I thank you.
