Date: 07/04/2005
Source: Department of Science and Technology
Title: Hanekom: Science and Technology Dept Budget Vote 2005/2006
Budget Vote Address, by the Honourable Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, Derek Hanekom
Madame Speaker
Honourable Members
Minister Mangena has explained the mandate of DST, our immediate policy priorities and what strategies we will be employing to deliver on them. Quoting the renowned physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi, he has challenged us to think of the right questions to ask, and to make sure we ask them every day.
These are some of the questions we need to ask: Are we making a positive contribution to economic growth? Do our technologies benefit the poor and the deprived? Do they contribute to the protection and regeneration of our environment and our finite non-renewable resource base? Do they minimise waste and energy consumption? Do they offer potential solutions to diseases like HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis?
The simple answer to all these questions is: yes. Yes, of course, the generation of knowledge and the application of science do offer solutions, and our science system does contribute positively to our economic and social objectives.
The immediate follow-up question though, is whether we are fully realising the potential of science and technology; whether we are investing enough in research and development, and whether we are close to finding solutions to current and future challenges that confront us.
Given the magnitude of the endemic challenges before us, the answer is clearly that we still have a long way to go before we realise the full potential science offers us; we have to invest substantially more in research and, while we have made good progress in our search for solutions to the so-called killer diseases, it would be premature to say that a solution is close.
The science community is confronted head-on by continued environmental degradation, aggravated by temperature rises and droughts, the reality of poverty, inequality and hunger and the persistence of disease. Despite our water shortages, and the strain on our electricity grid, water and energy continue to be wasted through inefficiency, over-consumption and policy deficiencies. Industrial pollution of our soil, water and air remains unacceptably high.
These are the challenges, and we will require the best of science, combined with a range of other interventions to find lasting solutions.
Let us look at some of the things we are doing to address issues of health, water, energy, poverty and food security, and how science and technology can be successfully applied to improve people’s lives.
But first a general comment: too often the need to address developmental priorities is simply associated with alternative and lower level technologies. What our government has managed to show is that it is possible to address our needs in such a way that poverty alleviation and large innovative global projects can be simultaneously managed in a complementary manner. The Working for Water Programme and the Expanded Public Works Programmes are good examples: The challenges of improved water resource management, biodiversity issues, and the need for expanded infrastructure are addressed, while at the same creating large numbers of jobs for unemployed people, with accompanying skills training. In many cases these projects have resulted in the creation of sustainable and innovative local enterprises.
The bridges and roads that are built have to be well designed and the best of engineering skill and technology has to be applied. And the physical removal of alien plant species has to be complemented by effective biological control or else we will be fighting a losing battle. This is why the DST finances a Centre of Excellence at the University of Stellenbosch, specialising in the control of invader species. Excellent and necessary research, linked with a successful poverty alleviation programme, is achieving multiple objectives: water management, jobs and biodiversity.
In fact, Honourable Members, many of the projects funded by our department do just that – achieve simultaneous and multiple objectives. To once again use water management as an example, I would like to refer to an agreement signed recently between the DST and the Buffalo City Municipality. It is a pilot focusing on the water, sanitation and energy needs of 290 houses.
The municipality has come to realise that its current approach to providing waterborne sanitation is unsustainable. Officials of the department have come up with an innovative solution and have demonstrated that dry sanitation can be placed inside a house, without odour or hygiene problems. They have also shown that so-called grey-water can be safely managed on site by the homeowner. The result is that there will be no need for sewer reticulation or treatment works, the municipality will save money and the system will be more environmentally friendly.
This capital saving will be utilised to dramatically improve the houses so that they are warm in winter, cool in summer and that hot water is provided at minimal cost through the provision of ceilings, insulation, roof ventilation and a solar hot water geyser. This is an excellent example of a technological intervention achieving a variety of objectives.
The department has committed R5,6 million to this project. This pilot project will be formally launched on 28 April and has all the ingredients for possible large-scale implementation.
Energy
Turning to the energy sector, the department works very closely with the Department of Minerals and Energy in the search for long-term sustainable solutions to our country’s energy needs, minimising pollution and decreasing reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels. Minister Mangena has mentioned our support for the Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor and the work we are doing on Hydrogen fuel cell research. One of our challenges at household level is to find alternative fuels to paraffin.
The recent fires in the informal settlements in Cape Town remind us of how dangerous paraffin is and how fire can threaten lives, destroy household belongings, and leave entire communities homeless and destitute. Indoor air pollution and the inhalation of fumes pose a major health problem affecting women and children in particular.
To address this problem the department has invested R3,25 million to assist in the development and marketing of ethanol gel based stoves and heaters. The ethanol gel burns very cleanly and neither leaves soot nor emits fumes. The use of a gel, instead of a liquid, means that if a stove is knocked over the flames will not spread but stay in one place, making it much easier to extinguish the fire. The stoves do not work under pressure, eliminating another potential danger of flash fires from leaking primus stoves. A further advantage of the ethanol gel as a viable commercial substitute is that it can be derived from biomass instead of fossil fuel, thus promoting the use of renewable energy sources.
Information Technology
Let us move to the area of information technology. One of the challenges we face is to give all our citizens access to information through accessible technology. All of us in this chamber have access to computers, and everything that comes along with this technology, including e-mail facilities and the internet. Poor people do not have ready access to computers. The CSIR has come up with an innovative way of giving poor people and people who live in remote areas access to computers. This is achieved through mounting computers in a structure resembling the old telephone booths, and giving the public 24-hour free access.
This joint project between the DST and CSIR is called Digital Doorway - a very smart way of bridging the digital divide. Three pilot sites are in operation, and the results have already been quite remarkable. The computers are used virtually 18 hours a day, typically by groups of three or four young people crowded into the booth, having fun and learning from each other. In fact, by monitoring these booths we have found that they are used by people of all ages. There is no teacher or instructor. The learning is all computer-based peer learning. I paid a random visit to one of these digital doorways, and found a young teenager playing a spelling game, with very vocal and enthusiastic participation from his friends. Again, simultaneous objectives are being achieved – computer literacy and language proficiency. The possibilities are limitless for the use of these computers for health education and career advice, and much more.
I am told that young children in a rural community at Kei Mouth in the Eastern Cape, who had probably never before seen a computer, have gone as far as opening their own e-mail addresses, are doing internet searches, with a world of information at their fingertips!. This is truly bringing science and technology to the people, and opening the doors of learning. Ten more of these Digital Doorways will be constructed this year, with R5 million allocated to the project.
Health
Any attempt to give an overview of our activities and interventions to find solutions to health-related problems would clearly be incomplete without reference to DST’s contributions to the fight against HIV and AIDS. With 5.6 million of our people infected, it simply has to be one of our greatest priorities.
One of our ‘Frontier Programmes’ focuses on the development of an AIDS vaccine. The South African Aids Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI) is funded in a public-private partnership at a level of approximately R50 million per annum. This is a holistic vaccine development initiative that has three South African developed products that are going through the regulatory processes preceding Phase I human trials. SAAVI activities cover the broad spectrum of vaccine development components, including laboratory research and development, immunology testing in animals, community education, ethical protocol development, actuarial modelling, data collection and management, laboratory testing and planning for clinical trials.
This is an extremely important area of research. Millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and indeed across the entire continent of Africa, are anxiously waiting for positive results. The hard truth is that this pandemic will not be eradicated without an effective vaccine. However, even in the best-case scenario it will take a number of years before such a vaccine is available. The continued implementation of our existing comprehensive programme is vital, along with further interventions that can be more immediately applied. One such intervention is the development of a microbicide.
United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in his keynote address at the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, said, “No less pressing is our second priority of empowering women and girls to protect themselves against the virus. We must ensure that they have full access to the practical options that can protect them from HIV, including microbicides”.
Taking the lead from Kofi Annan, this department will work closely with researchers to ensure the development of microbicides and to fast-track women’s access to microbicides.
Agriculture
The knowledge we generate and accumulate, and the technologies that are developed must be made available to ordinary people on the ground, who are trying to sustain their families and free themselves from poverty. All departments, including DST, contribute to our collective responsibility of ensuring that our government’s commitment to create sustainable jobs is realized. Working in partnership with the science councils, universities and research institutes, the department is supporting a number of income-generating projects in the area of agro-processing. In particular we have focused on technologies and knowledge developed by the CSIR in the cultivation and processing of essential oils.
These community essential oils projects are labour intensive and offer high returns on investment created by the high global demand for the product. South Africa has too few commercial farmers in this area of specialisation. The ultimate objective is to assist communities in establishing financially sustainable community-owned essential oils enterprises in order to stimulate local economic activity. The essential oil businesses are specialising in Rose Geranium and Mosquito repellent oil developed by the CSIR. A factory that produces mosquito repellent candles from these essential oils is presently operational in Giyani in the Limpopo province.
We are also supporting Aquaculture projects in the Western Cape in collaboration with the University of Stellenbosch and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC). Plans are in place to expand these projects to the KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North West and Limpopo provinces. A total of 60 farmers have participated in the programme with a potential annual income of R44 000 per farmer. The objective is to establish a network of small-scale fish farmers producing food and additional income for their respective communities. We have allocated approximately R6 million to these projects.
The department recognises the importance of Indigenous Knowledge. To this end, DST has initiated the establishment of indigenous medicinal plant small businesses. The Devil’s Claw root has been used by the Khoisan people for thousands of years in traditional remedies. The project includes the establishment of a processing plant.
As we begin the new financial year we are committed to strengthening and expanding projects that have performed well. All of these efforts are essential if we are to increase rural incomes and generate new employment opportunities in the rural economy, which is one of our developmental priorities.
Therefore, we will continue investing in the commitments we have undertaken, we will continue to inspire our children as we seek to find and grow appropriate, often innovative, solutions to the challenges we face in developing our people, our economy and our country as a whole.
I trust that we have been able to outline some of the programmes and benefits of the government’s science and technology programmes in South Africa. These should not be of interest only to a variety of scientists, hidden away in laboratories and workshops, but should be of concern to all South Africans and especially to our public representatives. Because, ultimately, a lack of scientific understanding and appreciation undercuts support for the search of further understanding, and leads to ignorance of many developmental opportunities available.
Whether one regards science as “nothing but trained and organised common sense” (to quote the famous 19th century scientist T H Huxley) or as “a force that made gods of us before we earned the right to be people” (courtesy of French philosopher Jean Rostand), or whether one concurs with the cynical playwright George Bernard Shaw who once said: “Science is always wrong – it never solves a problem without creating ten more”, one cannot but emphatically acknowledge its crucial importance in the future of the planet we call home.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Science and Technology
7 April 2005
Source: Department of Science and Technology
Title: Hanekom: Science and Technology Dept Budget Vote 2005/2006
Budget Vote Address, by the Honourable Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, Derek Hanekom
Madame Speaker
Honourable Members
Minister Mangena has explained the mandate of DST, our immediate policy priorities and what strategies we will be employing to deliver on them. Quoting the renowned physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi, he has challenged us to think of the right questions to ask, and to make sure we ask them every day.
These are some of the questions we need to ask: Are we making a positive contribution to economic growth? Do our technologies benefit the poor and the deprived? Do they contribute to the protection and regeneration of our environment and our finite non-renewable resource base? Do they minimise waste and energy consumption? Do they offer potential solutions to diseases like HIV and AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis?
The simple answer to all these questions is: yes. Yes, of course, the generation of knowledge and the application of science do offer solutions, and our science system does contribute positively to our economic and social objectives.
The immediate follow-up question though, is whether we are fully realising the potential of science and technology; whether we are investing enough in research and development, and whether we are close to finding solutions to current and future challenges that confront us.
Given the magnitude of the endemic challenges before us, the answer is clearly that we still have a long way to go before we realise the full potential science offers us; we have to invest substantially more in research and, while we have made good progress in our search for solutions to the so-called killer diseases, it would be premature to say that a solution is close.
The science community is confronted head-on by continued environmental degradation, aggravated by temperature rises and droughts, the reality of poverty, inequality and hunger and the persistence of disease. Despite our water shortages, and the strain on our electricity grid, water and energy continue to be wasted through inefficiency, over-consumption and policy deficiencies. Industrial pollution of our soil, water and air remains unacceptably high.
These are the challenges, and we will require the best of science, combined with a range of other interventions to find lasting solutions.
Let us look at some of the things we are doing to address issues of health, water, energy, poverty and food security, and how science and technology can be successfully applied to improve people’s lives.
But first a general comment: too often the need to address developmental priorities is simply associated with alternative and lower level technologies. What our government has managed to show is that it is possible to address our needs in such a way that poverty alleviation and large innovative global projects can be simultaneously managed in a complementary manner. The Working for Water Programme and the Expanded Public Works Programmes are good examples: The challenges of improved water resource management, biodiversity issues, and the need for expanded infrastructure are addressed, while at the same creating large numbers of jobs for unemployed people, with accompanying skills training. In many cases these projects have resulted in the creation of sustainable and innovative local enterprises.
The bridges and roads that are built have to be well designed and the best of engineering skill and technology has to be applied. And the physical removal of alien plant species has to be complemented by effective biological control or else we will be fighting a losing battle. This is why the DST finances a Centre of Excellence at the University of Stellenbosch, specialising in the control of invader species. Excellent and necessary research, linked with a successful poverty alleviation programme, is achieving multiple objectives: water management, jobs and biodiversity.
In fact, Honourable Members, many of the projects funded by our department do just that – achieve simultaneous and multiple objectives. To once again use water management as an example, I would like to refer to an agreement signed recently between the DST and the Buffalo City Municipality. It is a pilot focusing on the water, sanitation and energy needs of 290 houses.
The municipality has come to realise that its current approach to providing waterborne sanitation is unsustainable. Officials of the department have come up with an innovative solution and have demonstrated that dry sanitation can be placed inside a house, without odour or hygiene problems. They have also shown that so-called grey-water can be safely managed on site by the homeowner. The result is that there will be no need for sewer reticulation or treatment works, the municipality will save money and the system will be more environmentally friendly.
This capital saving will be utilised to dramatically improve the houses so that they are warm in winter, cool in summer and that hot water is provided at minimal cost through the provision of ceilings, insulation, roof ventilation and a solar hot water geyser. This is an excellent example of a technological intervention achieving a variety of objectives.
The department has committed R5,6 million to this project. This pilot project will be formally launched on 28 April and has all the ingredients for possible large-scale implementation.
Energy
Turning to the energy sector, the department works very closely with the Department of Minerals and Energy in the search for long-term sustainable solutions to our country’s energy needs, minimising pollution and decreasing reliance on non-renewable fossil fuels. Minister Mangena has mentioned our support for the Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor and the work we are doing on Hydrogen fuel cell research. One of our challenges at household level is to find alternative fuels to paraffin.
The recent fires in the informal settlements in Cape Town remind us of how dangerous paraffin is and how fire can threaten lives, destroy household belongings, and leave entire communities homeless and destitute. Indoor air pollution and the inhalation of fumes pose a major health problem affecting women and children in particular.
To address this problem the department has invested R3,25 million to assist in the development and marketing of ethanol gel based stoves and heaters. The ethanol gel burns very cleanly and neither leaves soot nor emits fumes. The use of a gel, instead of a liquid, means that if a stove is knocked over the flames will not spread but stay in one place, making it much easier to extinguish the fire. The stoves do not work under pressure, eliminating another potential danger of flash fires from leaking primus stoves. A further advantage of the ethanol gel as a viable commercial substitute is that it can be derived from biomass instead of fossil fuel, thus promoting the use of renewable energy sources.
Information Technology
Let us move to the area of information technology. One of the challenges we face is to give all our citizens access to information through accessible technology. All of us in this chamber have access to computers, and everything that comes along with this technology, including e-mail facilities and the internet. Poor people do not have ready access to computers. The CSIR has come up with an innovative way of giving poor people and people who live in remote areas access to computers. This is achieved through mounting computers in a structure resembling the old telephone booths, and giving the public 24-hour free access.
This joint project between the DST and CSIR is called Digital Doorway - a very smart way of bridging the digital divide. Three pilot sites are in operation, and the results have already been quite remarkable. The computers are used virtually 18 hours a day, typically by groups of three or four young people crowded into the booth, having fun and learning from each other. In fact, by monitoring these booths we have found that they are used by people of all ages. There is no teacher or instructor. The learning is all computer-based peer learning. I paid a random visit to one of these digital doorways, and found a young teenager playing a spelling game, with very vocal and enthusiastic participation from his friends. Again, simultaneous objectives are being achieved – computer literacy and language proficiency. The possibilities are limitless for the use of these computers for health education and career advice, and much more.
I am told that young children in a rural community at Kei Mouth in the Eastern Cape, who had probably never before seen a computer, have gone as far as opening their own e-mail addresses, are doing internet searches, with a world of information at their fingertips!. This is truly bringing science and technology to the people, and opening the doors of learning. Ten more of these Digital Doorways will be constructed this year, with R5 million allocated to the project.
Health
Any attempt to give an overview of our activities and interventions to find solutions to health-related problems would clearly be incomplete without reference to DST’s contributions to the fight against HIV and AIDS. With 5.6 million of our people infected, it simply has to be one of our greatest priorities.
One of our ‘Frontier Programmes’ focuses on the development of an AIDS vaccine. The South African Aids Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI) is funded in a public-private partnership at a level of approximately R50 million per annum. This is a holistic vaccine development initiative that has three South African developed products that are going through the regulatory processes preceding Phase I human trials. SAAVI activities cover the broad spectrum of vaccine development components, including laboratory research and development, immunology testing in animals, community education, ethical protocol development, actuarial modelling, data collection and management, laboratory testing and planning for clinical trials.
This is an extremely important area of research. Millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and indeed across the entire continent of Africa, are anxiously waiting for positive results. The hard truth is that this pandemic will not be eradicated without an effective vaccine. However, even in the best-case scenario it will take a number of years before such a vaccine is available. The continued implementation of our existing comprehensive programme is vital, along with further interventions that can be more immediately applied. One such intervention is the development of a microbicide.
United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in his keynote address at the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, said, “No less pressing is our second priority of empowering women and girls to protect themselves against the virus. We must ensure that they have full access to the practical options that can protect them from HIV, including microbicides”.
Taking the lead from Kofi Annan, this department will work closely with researchers to ensure the development of microbicides and to fast-track women’s access to microbicides.
Agriculture
The knowledge we generate and accumulate, and the technologies that are developed must be made available to ordinary people on the ground, who are trying to sustain their families and free themselves from poverty. All departments, including DST, contribute to our collective responsibility of ensuring that our government’s commitment to create sustainable jobs is realized. Working in partnership with the science councils, universities and research institutes, the department is supporting a number of income-generating projects in the area of agro-processing. In particular we have focused on technologies and knowledge developed by the CSIR in the cultivation and processing of essential oils.
These community essential oils projects are labour intensive and offer high returns on investment created by the high global demand for the product. South Africa has too few commercial farmers in this area of specialisation. The ultimate objective is to assist communities in establishing financially sustainable community-owned essential oils enterprises in order to stimulate local economic activity. The essential oil businesses are specialising in Rose Geranium and Mosquito repellent oil developed by the CSIR. A factory that produces mosquito repellent candles from these essential oils is presently operational in Giyani in the Limpopo province.
We are also supporting Aquaculture projects in the Western Cape in collaboration with the University of Stellenbosch and the Agricultural Research Council (ARC). Plans are in place to expand these projects to the KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, North West and Limpopo provinces. A total of 60 farmers have participated in the programme with a potential annual income of R44 000 per farmer. The objective is to establish a network of small-scale fish farmers producing food and additional income for their respective communities. We have allocated approximately R6 million to these projects.
The department recognises the importance of Indigenous Knowledge. To this end, DST has initiated the establishment of indigenous medicinal plant small businesses. The Devil’s Claw root has been used by the Khoisan people for thousands of years in traditional remedies. The project includes the establishment of a processing plant.
As we begin the new financial year we are committed to strengthening and expanding projects that have performed well. All of these efforts are essential if we are to increase rural incomes and generate new employment opportunities in the rural economy, which is one of our developmental priorities.
Therefore, we will continue investing in the commitments we have undertaken, we will continue to inspire our children as we seek to find and grow appropriate, often innovative, solutions to the challenges we face in developing our people, our economy and our country as a whole.
I trust that we have been able to outline some of the programmes and benefits of the government’s science and technology programmes in South Africa. These should not be of interest only to a variety of scientists, hidden away in laboratories and workshops, but should be of concern to all South Africans and especially to our public representatives. Because, ultimately, a lack of scientific understanding and appreciation undercuts support for the search of further understanding, and leads to ignorance of many developmental opportunities available.
Whether one regards science as “nothing but trained and organised common sense” (to quote the famous 19th century scientist T H Huxley) or as “a force that made gods of us before we earned the right to be people” (courtesy of French philosopher Jean Rostand), or whether one concurs with the cynical playwright George Bernard Shaw who once said: “Science is always wrong – it never solves a problem without creating ten more”, one cannot but emphatically acknowledge its crucial importance in the future of the planet we call home.
Thank you.
Issued by: Department of Science and Technology
7 April 2005
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