Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand, Professor Loyiso Nongxa;

Vice-President of the African Development Bank, Dr Mandla Gantsho;

CEO of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, Mr Paul Baloyi;

Representatives of Diplomatic Missions;

Visitors from Africa and beyond;

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The United Nations Development Programme perceives human development in terms of creating an environment in which people value their own and other people’s lives. Human development is about harnessing the inherent wealth in human resources for the benefit of themselves, their communities and their countries.

Indeed, this is the letter and spirit of the key outcomes of my department’s National Research and Development Strategy.

Economic growth is expected to lead towards with the improvement of the quality of life, and every progressive nation in the world aspires towards the achievement of this goal. Hence, the endless refrain articulated in all declarations and policies of note about the need to end poverty by ensuring sustainable development.

The need to intensify the development of the human capital capable of producing new knowledge remains an imperative for realising these outcomes. It is through the applications of new knowledge that we measure the difference we are making and justify the use of public resources expended for undertaking our R&D.

Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action, which was adopted by the African Ministerial Conference of Science and Technology (AMCOST) last year, visualises the possibility of an Africa that is free of poverty and well-integrated into the global economy if the continent can implement its Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action “with the goal of harnessing and applying science and technology, and ensuring that it contributes to the global pool of scientific knowledge and technological innovations”.

I believe that this vision can only be a reality if it can be pursued and vigorously implemented by the drivers of knowledge production and innovation systems such you gathered in this room.

This Conference gives impetus to the progress made by the African Ministers of Science and Technology who have, since 2003, been at the forefront of the revival of science and technology in Africa.

This was achieved through the establishment of the NePAD Science and Technology platform in Africa called African Ministerial Conference on Science and Technology (AMCOST).

African Ministers of Science and Technology are working tirelessly to provide strategic leadership and build an enabling policy environment for the science and technology human capital.

We are therefore very pleased, Vice Chancellor Nongxa, that the University of the Witwatersrand and its partners in the continent have taken advantage of these conditions, and are today in a position to display to the whole continent their successful ventures where the generation of new knowledge is being applied across a broad range of disciplines to support sustainable developmental projects.

We also commend this institution for playing a prominent role towards the realisation of Africa’s development through the many partnerships it has established with its colleagues beyond our borders.

Aspirations of the Africa’s Consolidated Science and Technology Plan of Action include, among others, addressing Africa’s local needs, building strong African institutions geared towards, knowledge production and application, cultivating Africa’s skills pool, developing an enabling policy environment, and embracing, nurturing; and harvesting regional diversity.

I have no doubt that the adoption and implementation of these principles will go a long way in assisting us to roll out the Science and Technology Plan in the continent. I hope that these ideas will also form a basis for your engagement with other institutions in the continent.

They are inter-twined, and in reality, none can be achieved without the others. It remains to be seen how each of the principles can be achieved and how they should interact in order to facilitate the achievement of our goals.

It is evident that African universities must be the vanguard in the quest to generate the knowledge and skills required for sustainable development in Africa. The revitalisation of these universities to fulfil this role is now widely accepted as a priority.

Three criteria are important in moving the knowledge for Africa’s development agenda forward, viz. collaboration, multi-disciplinarity and integration.

Collaboration amongst institutions of higher learning within Africa, and between institutions of the South and the North, is widely seen as a recipe for success in building capacity to drive the knowledge for development agenda.

The establishment of African networks of knowledge centres are considered key in this regard. This approach will mobilise scattered pockets of excellence across regions of the continent, and create the necessary critical mass of knowledgeable people to work together on programmes aimed at advancing knowledge for development.

South Africa, in partnership with countries in the continent, has been instrumental in the establishment of networks of excellence across the African continent, notably the African Laser Centre and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences or AIMS. These and others provide centres of intense knowledge production.

Africa’s mastery of locally relevant technological changes can only be achieved through the training and production of scientists and engineers whose work is rooted in Africa’s needs. In order to achieve this, excellence in research endeavours and good teaching at undergraduate levels must be at globally competitive levels.

Research has evolved to become a collective enterprise. Knowledge is produced by networks of researchers, and these knowledge producing networks are, in most cases, virtual and exist across different countries and continents.

Indeed, the Wits Development Orientated Training and Research Programme is a clear example of how the higher education sector can contribute in this regard.

It is pleasing to see that these partnerships have been built across all the faculties, including engineering, health sciences, humanities and the social sciences. There is no doubt that the combination of natural and engineering sciences, together with social sciences and humanities, is supremely important for understanding and fostering innovation. Technological innovation occurs in social contexts, and it is important to understand these.

Sustainable development in Africa is complicated by a number of inherent socio-political and socio-economic imperatives. Knowledge for Africa’s development will need to take cognisance of these factors to ensure the optimal impact of any scientific and technological innovation.

This will require a multi-disciplinary approach involving the utilisation of knowledge from the social sciences and humanities.

Any initiatives to break down barriers across disciplines to create avenues for communication and better understanding of the complexities involved in creating knowledge economies on the continent, need to be encouraged and supported.

Multi-disciplinary approaches of this nature will be of particular importance in initiatives aimed at eradicating poverty and establishing effective and efficient health care delivery systems - two of the key aspects of the Millennium Development Goals. Isolated innovations in science and technology will not achieve the desired impact.

Today’s conference points to the many dimensions of sustainable development in Africa, as illustrated by the different disciplines represented here. Gatherings of this nature are of great value in that they provide opportunities for engagement across disciplines with the common purpose of creating knowledge for Africa’s development.

Such multi-disciplinary meetings are sure to spawn new and unique ideas that can create new innovation pathways.

The importance of an integrated approach to generating knowledge for sustainable development can hardly be overemphasised. Effective interventions to deal with challenges facing the continent such as education and training, skills retention, poverty, health and economic growth will be difficult to achieve through isolated sectoral programmes and strategies.

Emphasis must be placed on greater integrative approaches in strategic, policy and decision making structure.

Following in the steps of AMCOST, a Southern African Development Community Ministers’ Council on Science and Technology, which is leading in the development of a SADC protocol, has since been established.

This protocol will guide the implementation of the sub-regional science and technology plan. We are convinced that the foundation for sustainable development in Africa lies in multi-disciplinary inter-regional, country-to-country, institution-to-institution and people-to-people cooperation within the context of integrated national, regional and even continent-wide policies and strategies.

The UN Task Force in S&T report entitled, “Innovation: applying knowledge in development”, has also determined roles for universities in sustainable development. Some of the roles identified include:

Undertaking entrepreneurial activities aimed at improving regional and national socio-economic and social performance;

Getting involved with communities and gaining direct knowledge about social needs, some of which could be identified through R&D activities;

Conducting industrial R&D, creating spin-off entities, and participating in capital formation projects such as technology parks and business incubator facilities, etc.

For this development agenda to succeed, it would be useful to adjust curricula, and create a wider institutional ecologies that include other parts of the development process. We believe these suggestions will go a long way towards taking Africa to greater heights.

We hope this forum will seriously consider the contributions it can make towards the implementation of Africa’s Consolidated S&T Plan and general developmental goals of the continent. We are fully aware that some of the institutions are already making valuable contributions to Africa’s developmental agenda.

May I, in closing, take this opportunity to congratulate this institution and its African partners for your dedication and commitment to Africa’s development. Despite the many challenges we must address, by holding each other’s hand we can advance to the future with confidence.

I wish you well in the important work you are doing, and look forward to further cooperation.

Thank you very much for your attention.