7 September 2014
Dr Peter Clayton, Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research and Development Mr Tim Kiy, Head of Communication, Barclays Africa Professor Anthea Garman, Chairperson of the Highway Africa Steering Committee and Deputy Head of School of Journalism & Media Studies The leadership of The African Editors Forum (TAEF), the South Africa National Editors Forum (SANEF) and the African Media Initiative (AMI) Members of the diplomatic corps Distinguished guests Our journalist friends from all over the continent Ladies and gentlemen I welcome you to the Province of the Eastern Cape and to South Africa.
I consider it a very special honour to be invited to address this august gathering of Africa’s educators, policymakers and business executives at the Barclays Africa Dinner.
Highway Africa, so I have been made are aware, is the largest annual gathering of African journalists and it gives me great pleasure that this august assembly of media professionals is taking place here in South Africa.
It is also very appropriate that a conference of this nature should be permanently associated with the Eastern Cape because this province was a bastion of the African media from the early days of Imvo Zabantsundu (Black People’s Opinion) founded by JT Jabavu in 1884, right through to the dark days of media blackouts, censorship and acts of terror that became synonymous with apartheid.
Thank you for making us part of the 18th edition of the Highway Africa Conference, whose genesis we trace to the infancy of our country’s democratic dispensation.
Indeed, the inaugural, ad hoc conference of 1996 featured just 65 delegates who came together a short while after the historic adoption of our first democratic Constitution. A Constitution which enshrines the very rights and freedoms and responsibilities that have, in one guise or another, been at the heart of each Highway Africa deliberation since then.
This annual assembly of media practitioners and scholars, journalists, and academics from all corners of our Continent, constitutes a vital intellectual and practical contribution to our collective continental effort to create a better Africa for a better world.
This platform has, over the years, provided the space for critical reflection on the challenges facing our continent, while also spawning innovation, individually and collectively, that has enhanced the lives of Africans and contributed to global best practices in human interaction.
At the same time, some innovations, whether originated within our own continent or elsewhere, have produced unforeseen and possibly unwelcome impacts, which we need to assess and respond to continuously.
Highway Africa 2014, with the theme Social Media – from the margins to the mainstream, will no doubt produce energising but also challenging insights into how Africa’s adoption, creation and application of social platforms has shaped the lives of 1,1 billion people on African soil.
Social media has indeed become a means through which democratic expression has been broadened across our continent, giving voice to previously voiceless peoples or constituencies, and enabling economic and entrepreneurial activity.
But it has also been a means through which intolerance, hate speech and terror has been propagated, undermining the progressive values and practices that dominate Africa’s political and social landscape in the 21st Century.
As we wrestle this weekend with our assessment of the impact of social media on Africa in the past decade, we must return to the central question of how we can harness all communication platforms at our disposal or develop our own solutions to inspire and energise Africans at home and assert a narrative of hope rather than hopelessness.
Africa is changing and at long last the world has amended its outdated and myopic view of our continent. The emergence of the “Africa rising” narrative is long overdue and is a validation that Africa is changing economically, politically and socially.
Esteemed colleagues, within all of us lie the power to drive a new narrative around Africa; one of Africa’s unlimited potential and renewed hope for a better future.
The role of the media and the changing nature of the African narrative is one that will always be contested. The very nature of social media means that ordinary citizens are no longer passive consumers of news and information. They are also active producers of content.
But what do these dynamics of media and technology mean for Africa?
I would like to posit that we are at a point in history when we have the power to shape the narrative of the continent. It is critical that we own our narratives and frame ourselves in the way we are.
Autonomy in discourse is not negotiable in a world where the geopolitical order has so fundamentally changed from a unipolar to a multi-polar world.
The rise of the BRICS, the changing economies of Africa, the democratisation and continuing openness of our societies are elements of the narrative that we have to critically engage with. Critical engagement is not the equivalent of sunshine journalism – rather it involves a deeper understanding of the forces operating in society and how these impact on development and democracy.
In South Africa, we are looking forward to media as a social partner that will help focus the nation’s attention and energies on the implementation of the National Development Plan and on the priorities outlined in our recently adopted Strategic Framework for this political term.
Our Medium-Term Strategic Framework sets out 14 outcomes around which we will mobilise not just the Public Sector but all of South Africa to move South Africa forward faster than we have already done in 20 Years of Freedom.
Among the Framework’s focus areas are the following:
• Quality basic education and skills;
• Improving the health of the population; • Rural development and land reform; • Sustainable human settlements; • Reducing crime and corruption; • Improving local government performance; • Building a capable and developmental state; • Nation building and social cohesion, and • International relations.
President Jacob Zuma has, in his wisdom, established a number of Presidential Working Groups and Inter-Ministerial Committees to improve our consultation and partnership with all sectors of society and to improve our coordination within government in dealing with these national issues.
The priorities we have set are not partisan priorities or party political priorities; these are national priorities and, as such, should enjoy the input and support – as well as critique – of all South Africans, if we are to accelerate transformation in the country.
There is room for media and government to work together towards a sustained developmental agenda for the continent. I strongly believe that African media have a key role to play in driving this new narrative of hope.
It is sometimes easy to forget that merely 20 years ago South Africa was a very different place where the freedoms we now take for granted were unheard of.
Our journey from apartheid to democracy came about because of the selfless sacrifice of countless patriots. They understood the need for social, economic and political change and became the agents who drove this change.
Such a groundswell is needed if we are to truly develop and foster a common vision for Africa. By its very nature, media and government are often on different sides of the fence. However, Africa is home to all of us and its future success and growth lies in our collective hands.
We dare not allow others to drive the agenda and steer our future. Similarly, being on ‘different sides’ should not be a liscence to use the might of the pen to push Africa’s development backward, or to use the sharpness of the sword to silence the media into a meek and obedient drummer of African governments.
We are a continent and nation of patriots like Nat Nakasa. Nat is a true son of Africa and we are proud that he has at last returned home to rest in the place of his birth. He will be reburied on the 13th of September 2014.
Nat dedicated his career to actively oppose the system of apartheid. As a journalist he understood the power of information, he used his pen to tell the world about the gross human rights violations that routinely occurred in South Africa.
He exposed the atrocities and systematic violence perpetrated against black people. He wrote about the condition of being black in apartheid South Africa, questioned the status quo and advocated for a free society.
His commitment to journalistic principles, to telling his perspective no matter the cost put him in conflict with the apartheid government.
Times may have changed, but now more than ever there is a need for brave men and women to stand up and tell the African story. It is a story of hope, of change and renewal. The story of economic development, prosperity and stability.
The recent developments in Lesotho do not represent the Africa we want, and we have therefore, as part of the SADC Troika, condemn them for what they are. South Africa and SADC, did not hesitate to act because the narrative of this continent cannot be defined in those terms.
It is much like our own South African story, one of a nation finding its feet and its place in a broader world.
When we consider South Africa’s role and place in Africa, our point of departure is that of building a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous society within our borders where we are seeking to push back the triple challenge of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
As we undertake this challenge, we are emboldened and heartened by the remarkable progress we have made during our first 20 Years of Freedom.
This progress is not entirely of our own making alone. Indeed, we owe our continental compatriots an immeasurable debt of gratitude for the South Africa’s full integration into the continent’s political and economic structures after decades of opening their hearts, homes and borders to South Africans as part of the global struggle against apartheid.
For South Africa, the entrenchment of democracy and development at home is a contribution to peace, stability and development in our immediate region as well as the broader continent.
Our current efforts to secure a sustainable political solution in Lesotho are, therefore, consistent with our outlook for SADC and the entire African Union.
South Africa is an active partner in and contributor to the African Union’s pursuit of a peaceful, prosperous, united and developed Africa as envisioned in the AU’s Agenda 2063.
The Agenda 2063 is a call for action and a strategic framework and roadmap to achieve continental development goals.
It represents a collective effort and an opportunity for Africa to regain its power to determine its own destiny, and is underpinned by the AU Vision to build an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, an Africa driven and managed by its own citizen and representing a dynamic force in the international arena.
Agenda 2063 should be seen as a new phase in efforts by Africans to catalyse development of the continent and strengthen African integration and unity. It aims to build on the achievements and draw lessons from earlier efforts such as the Lagos Plan of Action, the Abuja Treaty and NEPAD to address new challenges faced by the continent, in the short, medium and long-term.
The guiding principle is continuity of actions, drawing appropriate lessons and building on what has worked in the past. A major issue is how to do things better and bigger.
Thus, Agenda 2063 should be seen as a unique opportunity to recreate the African narrative by putting it into perspective to enthuse and energise the African population and use their constructive energy to set and implement an achievable agenda for unity, peace and development in the 21st century.
Earlier this year, our own President Jacob Zuma had the gratifying responsibility to present to the NEPAD Heads of State and Government Orientation Committee a report of the Nepad Presidential Infrastructure Champion Initiative on progress in developing a North-South network of road and rail connections.
The Presidential Infrastructure Champion Initiative is based on the AU, Nepad African Action Plan (AAP) and the Programme for the Infrastructural Development of Africa (PIDA).
The AU anticipates that once programme is fully implemented, the outcomes will include reduced energy costs. Africa will reap savings on electricity production costs of $30 billion a year or $850 billion in total by 2040. Power access will rise from 39% in 2009 to nearly 70% in 2040, providing access to an additional 800 million people.
Plans to tap the full 40 thousand megawatts hydropower potential of the Grand Inga dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo are also becoming a reality, as President Zuma recently told the National Press Club in Washington.
And the free trade area uniting southern, central and east Africa into a market of 600 million consumers, with a combined GDP of one trillion US dollars, is now in prospect.
For South Africa, the African Development Bank’s role as a key, indigenous financier of these mega-projects projects will be complemented by our newfound access to the recently established New Development Bank of the BRICS group of nations comprising Brazil, India, China and South Africa.
The New Development Bank, the first since the post-Bretton Woods Institutions era, demonstrates the depth of cooperation among key economies of the South.
The New Development Bank specifically enhances partnership in the financial domain and is a building block in an emerging new economic world order, that has the potential to accelerate development in ways and places that the traditional financing institutions failed and still fail to do.
President Jacob Zuma recently stated that BRICS’s focus on inclusive growth and sustainable solutions resonated with South Africa’s own National Development Plan and its Vision 2030, which is based on our shared understanding that our economy needs to be more inclusive, more dynamic, with the fruits of growth shared equitably.
South Africa prides itself on acting as a team player, a partner, collaborator, bridge-builder and facilitator in the regional, continental and global system.
We play this role in the Southern African Development Community, in the African Union, in IBSA, BRICS and the partnerships between Africa and, respectively, the United States, China and the European Union.
President Jacob Zuma recently put it best when he declared: “It is truly a season of great hope and promise for Africa. While challenges remain in the areas of peace and security or poverty in parts of the continent, there is a determination to find African-led solutions.”
Esteemed colleagues, Highway Africa 2014 presents yet another opportunity for visionaries and practitioners in communications to ask which season – to use the President’s analogy – we are projecting to ourselves as Africans and to global audiences.
Is it the season of great hope and promise, or a season of cynicism and dismissal where we interrogate and inflame so much that we lose the inspiration that is required to move our continent forward?
When all the voices that should be heard, are heard, what is the enduring refrain that emerges from our continent? Is it one that will move Africans to build on our achievements, or is it one that suggests to people that our development is an unsustainable accident?
Is it possible that some Africans have less hope and zeal for our continent than the thousands of international investors and partners who are opening shops and offices in our midst, fuelled by their own belief, even from a distance, in our prospects?
In an overwhelmingly democratic continent, we expect news media to be fearless in investigating issues of public policy and in contributing to public discourse.
At the same time, we wish to see this fearlessness extend to holding up to Africans and the international community the irrefutable and unstoppable march of African development that is unfolding in our lifetime.
Highway Africa represents traditional and constantly evolving forms of communications and media that hold the potential to inspire a new African dialogue and discourse that will dispense with long-held prejudices and perceptions and let Africa’s dominant storyline of change and development emerge.
I look forward to Highway Africa 2014 taking its place in history as a platform where new solutions for a new Africa were shaped and where we extended the season of great hope.
I hope you will also find time as well to enjoy the beauty and hospitality of the Eastern Cape.
This town you are in – eRhini-Grahamstown - in particular is replete with the history of the region, and indeed is the heartbeat of the Makana municipal region which is named after a great resistance leader of the 19th century who struggled in these parts against colonial domination and dispossession.
We certainly hope that for many of you this will not be the last time to South Africa but we trust that you will come again to visit, learn and share with us.
I thank you.
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