Address by Naledi Pandor MP, Minister of Science and Technology, World Social Science Forum, Durban
Ladies and gentlemen,
The World Social Science Forum is an important scientific gathering that offers researchers in Africa the opportunity to engage with colleagues not only on key themes such as the challenging conference theme, "Transforming global relations for a just world", but also on the opportunities the social sciences offer to respond to the intractable and multi-dimensional challenges that confront Africa.
Science and innovation indicators on the continent tend to be worryingly inadequate. We are producing knowledge that tends to matter in our national systems but not in the global knowledge economy.
Africa also faces the challenge of increasing its base of highly skilled and competent scientists committed to the knowledge enterprise and ready to use their research to change industry social practices and institutions of governance.
South Africa began to respond to some of these challenges only recently. Drawing on existing expertise in several fields, while also using our task of radical transformation to identify new areas for knowledge exploration and development. One lesson has been that the social sciences matter in every facet of human existence.
We have, for example, been at the forefront of global research into questions of identity, the ancestors of humankind and the origins of our species in Africa. We learnt early on that it was important for Africa's researchers to define and elaborate their own niche domain of knowledge development and exploration.
Our focus on human origins and our common humanity has resulted in the establishment of the Cradle of Humankind as a World Heritage Site as well as the valuable Museum Afrika, the Apartheid Museum, and the Vredefort Dome, now also a declared World Heritage Site. All these have contributed to shifting our consciousness and perspective on the customs and traditions of our ancestors.
Our research into deep time is matched only by our research into deep space. Our understanding of the universe and research into astronomy and the cosmos, and increased understanding of matter, light and energy have made South Africa not only a sought-after partner in world research, but has also led to the improved management of our resources. One may ask how such achievements relate to a fairer global community. When we successfully bid and secured, along with Australia, the right to build the first significant global science infrastructure ever to be located in Africa, the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope, we altered Africa from research subject to future global research leader. This perspective of Africa as a place to conduct world-class science fits the form of transformation we wish to see through the social sciences.
Our researchers are also increasingly leaders in research into the developmental imperatives of our society - sustainable and inclusive economic growth, rural development, gender equity, the built environment, education, health and transforming legal frameworks that constrain or contribute to the quality of life of our people. A key question in economics is, given the new post-colonial framework of the inequality of globalisation, how do we in Africa create shared wealth and support poverty eradication without being locked out of international partnerships? Our researchers have to find answers to these troubling questions.
South Africa has amassed impressive capacity in medical research and training and is well recognised for this. It's expertise has been refocused to include the difficulties posed by Africa's vulnerability to intractable diseases. Our diseases of poverty such as TB and malaria, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, have been investigated alongside a deeper look into the role of traditional African medicine, indigenous knowledge and our unique botanical heritage and the possibilities they offer for responsive products and solutions.
As all these examples illustrate, South African social science research varies greatly. Yet fundamental to all is research within and across disciplinary boundaries, making possible multiple forms of collaboration - national, regional and international. The global knowledge economy demands a strong research and innovation capacity, is dependent on new forms of knowledge production and dissemination, and requires research contexts that are network enabled. We must create this innovation architecture if we are to have justice in knowledge distribution and knowledge creation. I am sure it's not necessary to say to this audience this justice would be fruitless if it excludes attention to gender equity and non-racism.
South African social science has helped us to understand, monitor and reflect upon the transformation of a racist society into one that seeks to be inclusive, non-racist and non-sexist. It is this field of knowledge generation that has alerted South Africa to the complexity of change from oppression to freedom. We are currently part of a more positive trend in socio economic progress, through building houses for the most vulnerable, connecting houses to electricity and providing clean drinking water. Yet our gini coefficient, that measure of income inequality, points out that we remain the country with the worst income inequality in the world.
There are many in our society and elsewhere who believe inequality does not matter. They believe governments must deal with poverty and that their role is to use those who have less to drive greater efficiency, economic growth and profit. Thomas Piketty and other researchers have begun to show that these profit seekers are wrong and that their strategies and practices will lead to greater strife and social inequality.
The issue confronting us today is: what more can we do to reduce inequality?
First, compulsory and free education is the greater leveller. The most effective way to eradicate poverty is through education. Education is fundamental to the achievement of the society envisaged in our Freedom Charter. Clearly we need to do more to increase success in maths and science education if we are to compete with the world. This will help us increase skills in scarce-skill professions and increase our ability to lead in a science- and technology-driven world and to engage in increasingly multidisciplinary demands in the social sciences and humanities
Second we need to deploy science and sustainability to neglected sectors such as agriculture. This is a sector in decline despite the potential it holds for food security, technology innovation, sustainable job creation, and transformation of vulnerable and marginalised communities. This is a necessary shift, as according to the World Bank, growth in agriculture is twice as effective at reducing poverty as many other growth sectors. More effective than investing in mining or finance or services. And it's women who are most productive in this sector.
Third, we need to manufacture more goods and provide better support to small and medium-size businesses. It’s in small to medium-size companies that most jobs are created. Small and medium-size companies contribute 40% of our GDP and account for 60% of all employment. We face the challenge of the "missing middle". Many firms employ fewer than 10 people, and many employ more than 300 people, but not enough businesses employ between 10 and 300 people. So this is where we should be focusing. And yet we know that our early-stage entrepreneurship is low in comparison with other similar countries.
In closing, citizenship and migration are currently the most pressing global issues. A photograph has always been worth a thousand words, but who can say how much the photo of a Syrian child is worth is in the age of social media?
Citizenship and belonging are contested arenas of social, economic and political action in South Africa. We live in a society where social and economic exclusion is deeply entrenched in the fabric of the society, and where the meaning of citizenship is brought in to question every day. The gap between the ‘haves’and the ‘have nots’widens, leaving unanswered questions about the meaning of citizenship in the new South Africa.
Many argue that South Africa remains a deeply divided society where expectations of greater social cohesion have not been realised and common notions of belonging remain an illusion. There are many recent examples from our universities to our mining industry.
We are also all acutely aware of the power and violence associated with xenophobia in South Africa and the need for greater tolerance and understanding, not only between black and white, but between all ethnic and national groups that co-habit this multicultural society.
Finally, we still feel the consequences of decades of entrenched migrant labour and the divisions created in families and communities across southern Africa. These rifts need to be better understood and analysed if great social cohesion and economic development is to be achieved.
I thank you.
