Minister of Science & Technology (South Africa), Naledi Pandor MP, at the US Academy of Sciences' symposium, "Innovation and Impact - Fostering New Partnership to Facilitate Africa’s Development", side event at the US-Africa leaders summit, Washington
Distinguished guests,
Friends from Africa,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good afternoon,
I’m delighted to have the opportunity to say a few words this afternoon before I introduce Dr Bernie Fanaroff who will tell you where we are with the SKA project. I would in the first instance like to thank you for making the time during a very busy conference programme to attend this event.
2014 marks the twentieth anniversary of South Africa’s first democratic elections. It is an important milestone –not only for all South Africans –but also for our global friends and partners who were steadfast allies in our struggle for freedom and democracy.
Science has played an important role inside South Africa in the first twenty years of our democracy. Over the past twenty years, science and technology, has been at the heart of the South African Government’s national growth and development strategies.
In my Department we have worked to strengthen our national engineering and innovation capacities to support the extensive physical infrastructure investments required by the South African economy.
One of the many problems plaguing South Africa after apartheid is that of exclusion. Science has played a decisive part in addressing the unacceptable inequalities and divisions in our society. For example, South Africans excluded from basic services during apartheid now enjoy access to electricity, clean water and sanitation –boosted by the benefits of technology-transfer programmes. Affordable health services and education are now available to the majority of South Africans leveraging for example e-health and e-education platforms. Our investment in ICT infrastructure not only narrowed but in many instances effectively bridged the digital divide, ensuring that the information society is not an opportunity for a privileged few.
Science also contributed decisively in less tangible but nevertheless equally important ways. Winning the bid to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope, for example, filled South Africans with pride and did as much to foster national unity as winning the rugby World Cup in 1995. Big science is beneficial to any society in transition such as ours.
International partnerships have done much to bring South Africa back into the fold of the commonwealth of nations.
The SKA is one of several global projects benefitting from strong international cooperation. Others include the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) working to strengthen international cooperation in harnessing Earth observation to inform policy- and decision-making for sustainable development. Another example is the European Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) where we collaborate to accelerate vaccine and drug development targeting the major poverty-related infectious diseases such as HIV-Aids, tuberculosis and malaria.
During the past twenty years science cooperation with Europe, America and Asia has played a valuable part in facilitating South African scientists’integration into the global community following the isolation of apartheid. Through multiple training, mobility and networking programmes, international partnerships actively contributed to human capital development for science and technology in South Africa. South Africa today has a vibrant national system of innovation, with knowledge production consistently on the increase due to international cooperation.
We often sing the praises of science diplomacy today. Indeed, when our President meets with his counterparts in international fora, they consistently salute the achievements of research and innovation partnerships in areas such as the environment, food security and health. It is not only the scientific output of these projects, which are important, but also their ability to bring people together, improving communication and understanding, building bridges of friendship and understanding. We have, however, to remain vigilant.We live in times when economic pressures and other challenges may encourage nations to become more inward looking, and so we continue to cherish and foster international cooperation.
This co-operation led to our successful bid and preparation for the SKA. The project has made a significant contribution to human capital development and technology innovation in South Africa, our Africa partner countries and Australia and its partner countries. The SKA is a great science technology and innovation story that we wish to share with you today.
Now it gives me great pleasure to hand over to Dr Bernie Fanaroff who is in charge of SKA South African to present an overview of this global collaboration that will make scientific history.
