Programme Director Representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen The theme, “Science Serving People” is indeed apt for such a conference.

Since its devastating application more than 50 years ago, the general public has tended to narrowly associate nuclear energy with destruction and disaster. Even with its successful utilisation in the production of electrical energy, these views have continued to persist.

As the forthcoming presentations to this conference will elucidate, nuclear science has opened up many opportunities in medicine, agriculture, environmental management and industry, in addition to its effective and peaceful application for electrical energy generation.

The many quality projects that are featured on this programme adequately highlight the role of the ‘peaceful atom’ in dealing with many crucial development challenges faced by society. South Africa has a long and proud history in the development and application of nuclear science and technology.

Not only are we one of the few African players active in this field, but we are also a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and one of the few countries that possessed the capacity to produce nuclear weapons but volunteered to opt out of such applications.

In the interest of peace and safeguarding the planet, we took the groundbreaking decision to orientate our human resources, expertise, and infrastructure towards nuclear technology that can be used for peaceful means.

As some of you would recall, after the closure of former strategic programmes such as uranium enrichment at Ucor or Atomic Energy Corporation (AEC), nuclear weapons at Armscor and non-viable activities such as fuel manufacture at the AEC for the Koeberg nuclear power station, our expertise and resources were re-allocated to other applications, which led, among others, to the following breakthroughs: The radioisotope production for the world market by making use of highly enriched uranium from the weapons programme at the SAFARI-1 Research Reactor and other facilities at Pelindaba.

South Africa can be proud of the fact that the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (NECSA), through its subsidiary NTP Radioisotopes, is the third largest supplier of medical isotopes in the world selling isotopes to more than 50 countries.

The portfolio of NTP is aptly complemented by the accelerator-based isotope production at iThemba LABS.

The production technologies and plants for hydrogen fluoride and fluorine that were established as part of the uranium enrichment programme were repositioned to form the platform for the production of a range of high-value fluorochemicals that have a world-wide market.

The Flourochemical Expansion Initiative (FEI) is a key priority of government. The development of its downstream flourochemicals capacity is housed within another NECSA subsidiary, Pelchem.

We expect substantial growth in this sector over the next few years. NECSA’s experience in fuel manufacturing for Koeberg supplied the core expertise and facilities for the local establishment of the fuel manufacturing programme for the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR).

Today, this has been fully demonstrated at a laboratory scale, and the first fuel for irradiation testing is expected to be produced towards the end of 2007. Similarly, local reactor physics and reactor engineering expertise from previous South African nuclear programmes helped to ensure fast progress with the PBMR project.

The rapid development of the PBMR programme over the last few years, from a mere idea to a company and project that is attracting international interest and admiration, bears testimony to the continued strength of South Africa in nuclear science and technology.

The PBMR is by far the most advanced reactor concept among the so-called Fourth Generation power reactors, which are expected to play a significant role in providing power across the world within the next decade or two. iThemba LABS is another facility drawing international attention through its research outputs, isotope production as already mentioned, and hadron therapy capabilities.

Notwithstanding the substantial capacity that exists, there is a danger that this will be eroded if we do not collectively prioritise human capital development initiatives.

I am therefore proud to share the stage with members of the Women in Nuclear Science (WINSA) initiative and the South Africa Young Nuclear Professional Society (SAYNPS). Both these initiatives have developed over the last 5 years, and are vital national resources maintaining a key role in nuclear science research, development, and application.

Representatives from these organisations have shared their initiatives and challenges they face. I wish them every success in their work, and look forward to seeing an increasing number of women and young scientists establishing themselves as leaders in nuclear science and technology.

Since the early 1990s, through her high-level expertise and experience, South Africa has been a leader in the African Regional Cooperative Agreement for Research Development and Training related to Nuclear Science and Technology (AFRA). Through numerous missions to African member states, South Africa has also contributed towards transferring expertise, giving training, performing audits and reviews, as well as undertaking tasks such as aquifer studies and the conditioning of redundant radioactive sources.

The expertise residing in the broad South African nuclear fraternity has also achieved a high level of acknowledgement in the International Atomic Energy fraternity.

This includes, amongst others, IAEA study groups, technical committees, and the development of nuclear material safeguard practices. As a matter of fact, South Africa hosts some currently operational ground-breaking IAEA-supported Technical Cooperation Projects that exploit some of our nuclear science capabilities, and are national, regional and inter-regional in scope. South Africa only began benefiting from programmes of the United Nations and its agencies under the new democratic dispensation.

Despite our short interaction with the IAEA Technical Cooperation programme, our interactions have been intensive, and have resulted in some notable achievements South Africa can be proud of. One such achievement is the application of the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) on an area-wide basis to manage fruit fly pests in selected fruit-growing areas in the Western Cape.

Based on the success of the initial work, we look forward to an expansion of this work. In addition, an analysis was undertaken on the feasibility and desirability of applying the technique to the Tsetse Fly.

The project seeks to contribute to the efforts aimed at alleviating the persistent problem of tsetse infestation in Africa by developing an Africa-wide programme of activities, including the mapping of isolated tsetse infestation areas, and defining and evaluating the inputs required for the elimination of tsetse flies from such areas.

As we move into the future, the rearing of sterile flies will be undertaken in preparation for an operational SIT programme. Another significant achievement was the expansion of the Newborn Screening Programme to Identify Metabolism Errors associated with mental retardation.

Here the main objective is to expand the initial pilot project for screening the newborn to other areas in South Africa, so that more infants with metabolism errors can be screened earlier to enable quicker treatment, and prevent mental retardation and possible death.

Another health related achievement is the development of a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based on the dot-blot hybridisation method that uses radioactive-labelled probes for rapid and high-throughput screening of mutations associated with drug resistance in tuberculosis (TB).

Improvements to the method have reduced the time needed to detect drug-resistance from 3 - 6 weeks to 6 - 8 days. Finally, the Integrated Groundwater Resources Management Project is a prime example of the use of radioactive isotopes to better understand complex groundwater systems. Limited water resources have been identified as a major problem for meeting the Millennium Development Goals with regard to sanitation and clean water suppliers.

In addition, scarce water resources are a major impediment to growth and development, as many investments in agriculture depend on the availability of water.

There are many more noteworthy projects I will not dwell on as the project leaders are here to take you through the detail. It will suffice to say that we have already achieved successes, and expect the consolidation and expansion of these gains. We are looking forward to a future conference where we can celebrate additional project areas.

A particular area that requires attention is pollution control and waste management. South Africa has decided to support and encourage nuclear technologies that can be effectively deployed for peaceful means.

In late 2006, we launched the second Country Programme Framework (CPF) applicable for the period 2006 - 2010. Priorities identified in the second CPF were built on the success of the projects undertaken as part of the first CPF. More important, this experience assisted South Africa in further refining the CPF to ensure maximum alignment with the development priorities of South Africa.

These included priorities in Agriculture, health, water, pollution control, waste management, and energy. While we are infinitely proud of the human capital we have, we must admit that there remains a clear and present challenge of accelerating the development of nuclear human capital capacity in our country, especially considering the increasingly ageing workforce in this field.

Nevertheless, I will leave it to this conference to ponder these and many other challenges facing our country as we strive to grow and develop our nuclear science and technology to serve the people of South Africa.

May I, in closing, express my hope that this conference will afford the participants opportunities to share their research and expertise in the field of nuclear science and technology, as well as present their ideas and possible solutions to many of the challenges facing us as a nation.

If this address has been too long, it is only because it is critical that we constantly work together to disprove the myth that nuclear energy can be used only for destructive purposes. All of us gathered here have a duty to demonstrate to our people and the world the many possible peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

May you hold fruitful and constructive deliberations throughout this conference.

I thank you.