COMMONWEALTH SCIENCE COUNCIL TO BE HELD AT CAPE TOWN

Issued by: Government Communication Information System

23 May 2001

South Africa will host the 40th Session of the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Science Council. A three day session involving Ministers from the Commonwealth countries, academics and industry will be held in Cape Town from 28th - 30th May 2001.

South Africa became an active member of the CSC in 1995 and was elected to the Executive Committee in 1997. Dr BS Ngubane, Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology was elected chair of the council for the 2001 - 2003 term. The council includes Mr Charles Clift (UK), Mrs Maureen Manchouk (Trinidad and Tobago), Dr R Adewoye (Nigeria), Dr Beth Heyde (Australia), Dr RA Mashelkar (India), Dr James Buwalda (New Zealand), Mr Alan Caruana (Malta) and Mr Ng Kam Chiu (Malaysia) in the executive committee.

Ministers responsible for the Portfolio of Science and Technology have been invited to contribute in the iscussions during the CSC meeting. The Theme of the work programme for 2001 to 2003 is Science and Technology for Development. During this period the focus is on promoting national systems of innovation through knowledge networking and tools such as forsighting.

DACST has experience in this regard since South Africa recently completed a four year Foresight exercise.

Some of the priority initiatives of the CSC are:

• The Commonwealth Knowledge Network which provides a conduit for the matching of solutions to problems, and a knowledge bank accessible to all;
• The CommQuest which is a partnership between the Commonwealth Secretariat, CSC and Techniquest to bring science education to the people and stimulate scientific curiosity;
• The Chemical Research and Environmental Needs (CREN) which has objectives to enhance the quality of industrial input and output in an environmentally friendly manner by improving the capability of member countries to apply science and technology, ther improving the standard of living of people.

It is hoped that ministers from the following countries will be in attendance: Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad, Malta, India and Malaysia as well as member ministers from: Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Zambia, Mauritius, Tanzania and Mozambique.

As an intergovernmental organisation, the Council has as its purpose, to enhance the capacity of its members to utilise science and technology for their social economic and environmental development. The CSC achieves this by acting as a facilitator and a catalyst by training, bringing people together, developing co-operative programmes and seeking donor support.

The Fellowship scheme is but one of the achievements. The scheme was established in 1980 to provide opportunities for scientists and engineers from member Commonwealth developing countries to enhance their professional skills and experience through short-term attachments in other Commonwealth countries. The purpose of the fellowship is to enable professionals involved in the programmes of the council, especially those promoting the activities of the Commonwealth Knowledge Network to exchange expertise.

Issued by Andile Xaba at the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology.

For more details please phone Mack Lewele [012] 337 8173 / 082 450 5076 or Andile Xaba @ [012] 337 8313 / 082 370 5336.