Esteemed delegates;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen:
On behalf of our government and the people of South Africa, and myself, I wish to extend a warm South African welcome to all the delegates from various parts of the world.
I would have liked to be there with you but unfortunately due to other unforeseen official commitments, it was not practical.
I also wish to take this opportunity to congratulate our entity , the Academy of Sciences of South Africa (Assaf) for its leadership of the 2025 Science20 Forum.
The 2025 Science20 (S20) Forum marks South Africa’s inaugural leadership of this important Forum and as you are aware, the S20 forms part of a set of national activities that are being held under the auspices of South Africa’s G20 Presidency for 2025.
South Africa’s G20 Presidency assumes special significance as it is the first time that this Presidency is occupied by a country on the African continent.
This Forum is equally significant as it follows the opening the science, technology, and innovation track of our G20 programme- which is currently underway at the University of the Free State, under the Research and Innovation Working Group.
As you are aware, the theme for this year’s S20 meeting is ‘Climate Change and Well-being’. This theme resonates strongly with our country’s overarching G20 theme of ‘Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability.’
Both themes do not just seek to draw our attention to the need for urgent, decisive and well thought out science- driven policy responses to some of the most fundamental challenges of our time- such as climate change and other environmental challenges, including pollution and biodiversity loss and of course global inequality, trans-national conflict, cyber security, and pandemics.
These two themes also seek to wake us up to the reality that the fundamental challenges of our time are interconnected and therefore require an approach that emphasises multi-disciplinarity, solidarity, collaboration and most importantly science-driven policy action.
Inspired by this realisation, for the duration of South Africa’s G20 Presidency, our science, technology, and innovation priorities will include the following:
1.Strengthening our country’s pandemic preparedness capacity;
2.Driving targeted research and development of emerging technologies and its diffusion into key economic sectors such as energy, agriculture, mining, health, and the circular and digital economies, with a deliberate focus on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence;
3.Continuing with the development of critical and high-end skills, through among others, our country’s Presidential PhD Programme (PPhP);
4.Mobilising additional funding and resources to raise the scale and impact of our key programmes and interventions and to use existing funding and resources innovatively;
5. Continuing with the upgrading and development of new science infrastructure and the further development of our SKA partnership; and
6.Continuing to strengthen strategic partnerships with a key focus on the African continent and the Global South.
Our Research and Innovation Working Group G20 Programme will conclude with the Ministerial Meeting, which I will host as Minister in September 2025, and I would like to encourage the delegates of this Forum to also seek shape the substance and discussions of the September Ministerial Meeting.
All of this imposes a number of important obligations on the delegates of this Forum. The first is to ensure that, consistent with the objective of this Forum of promoting scientific cooperation and in response to the challenges of our time, the delegates to this Forum must add to or come up with innovative and sustainable ways of ensuring that there is an increasing embrace of the value of science and evidence-based policy by governments and other key societal institutions, globally.
The second is to use this Forum to strengthen scientific cooperation and science diplomacy with a view to produce knowledge and critical skills in manner that seeks to help reduce rather widen the knowledge and skills chasm between the Global North and Global South.
Thirdly and perhaps most importantly, it is my hope that you will also use the 2025 Science 20 Forum to strengthen the resolve of the global scientific community to become more forceful in advancing the goal of ensuring that science plays a vanguardist role in the construction of a more just and humane world.
In conclusion, I wish you a productive meeting and given the wealth of knowledge present at this Forum, I have no doubt that the outcome of your deliberations will significantly contribute to our understanding and action of climate change and well-being.
I thank you.
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