Programme Director
Ms Naledi Pandor, Minister of Science and Technology, South Africa
Minister: Scientific Research, Democratic Republic of Congo
Dr Abraham Iyambo, Minister, Science and Technology, Namibia
Representative of the African Commission
Representative of Southern African Development Community (SADC)
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
I thank you for affording me the opportunity to address this august group of delegates today in what is a historic and landmark meeting. This is the gathering of visionary people who have taken it upon themselves to lead on the matter of women in science and technology at a sub-regional level.
Programme Director, allow me to begin by introducing my ministry and the work of the Department for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities in South Africa. His Excellency, President Jacob Zuma took a major step our history of the struggle for gender equality and promotion of rights of vulnerable groups in our country. After our fourth democratic election last year, the President announced the establishment of a new Ministry for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities.
This ministry is mandated to lead on issues of promoting and protecting the rights of women, children and persons with disabilities. We have to ensure that developmental opportunities are accessible and we must facilitate socioeconomic advancement of women.
We have also adopted the mainstreaming approach which should ensure that issues of women and gender equality are cross-cutting throughout the work of government. It is in this light today, that even though there is a dedicated ministry to handle women’s affairs, the Minister for Science and Technology in South Africa can actually lead on the work you are undertaking in this workshop.
I am extremely pleased that this first and historic Southern African Development Community (SADC) Women in Science Workshop takes place in South Africa. This is indeed a great honour for the women’s movement of our country.
Distinguished guests, the field of science and technology and the related areas such as mathematics, information and communications technology (ICTs) and nuclear science has been a predominantly male domain for far too long. Men have been the inventors or claimed the rights to having invented various scientific innovations and they have been the designers of this technology. In the process they have coveted this knowledge and made it their domain.
Yet, we are aware of the many contributions of women in the field of science and technology. For instance the first woman professor at the University of Paris, Madam Marie Curie was the first person to discover the theory of radioactivity which we know to be underpinnings of the scientific and technological world today.
South Africa can boast the presence of a world authority on dinosaurs who is a woman – Professor A Chinsamy-Torin at the University of Cape Town. This is a local woman who is acclaimed globally as the “Dinosaur woman” a master in the field of paleontology. As a woman in research she was given the Woman of the Year Award about three years back.
The issue for me is how do we create space for more women to contribution to scientific innovation? This workshop must look at long-term sustainability of this process. We have to increase the number of girls enrolled for mathematics and science at basic education level. We need to encourage these girls expand beyond the areas of human and health sciences when they reach tertiary education level.
Our country is making some effort to address these challenges and expand horizons for women. The Construction Education and Training Authority (Ceta) has reported a significant increase in the number of women applying for bursaries to pursue careers in construction. We have heard of the L’Oreal and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) fellowship for women in science in sub-Saharan Africa. We have to find measures to increase the number of initiatives of this nature and consequently the number of women benefiting.
The ministry for Women, Children and Persons with Disabilities is very much concerned about poor representation of women in strategic and leadership positions, 16 years into our democracy. While women constitute 52% of the general population, they only make up 45% of working South Africans. This inequity worsens at decision making level, with women constituting 19% of executive managers and about 17% of directors in various boards.
The sad reality is that, if we do not make the necessary interventions, it may take South Africa 40 years to achieve 50/50 gender parity at executive management and board of directors level. That is almost the same length of time that this country was ruled by apartheid government (1948-1994). That is, of course, in addition to hundreds of years of colonial exploitation.
It is at executive management and board level where decisions on training investment are taken. As it stands now, there is no indication that there is deliberate effort to shift training resources in favour of women. We have to work tirelessly to ensure that there is increased investment in skills development for women to enter into various economic areas.
I will also like to emphasise that we must include special measures that need to be taken with regard to involving women with disabilities into the world of science and technology. I urge you to identify those factors that pose obstacles to women with disabilities participating in the field of science and find ways that we can address them.
Let this sub-region be the first to lead in this regard, given that the United Nations (UN) Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities is being implemented globally now. Perhaps we will be able to show the rest of the world some good lessons learned.
Speaking of good practices, allow me to share some of the South African examples with the SADC member states. South Africa has been promoting girls’ in the areas of mathematics and science through the establishment of Dinaledi schools led by Minister Pandor in her previous capacity as the Minister for Education.
There have been other initiatives such as maths and science camps for girls. These efforts are opening the doors for girls in various fields of science. When girls are given such educational opportunities they will be achievers in their fields and this includes the fields of science, technology, communication, research etc.
Honoured delegates, we have to gear ourselves for a long struggle to achieve gender equality in areas that matter to the socio-economic development of our society. Science and technology is one area that has the ability to unleash our development potential as the continent of Africa. Let us work together to ensure that women are at the forefront of scientific innovation and technological development.
I thank you and I wish you well in your deliberations.
Source: Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities
