Opening address by the honourable Jeff Radebe, MP, Minister
in the Presidency for Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation; at the occasion of
the 28th session of the international union for the scientific study
of population (IUSSP); Cape Town ICC, Cape Town
29
OCTOBER 2017
Master of Ceremonies
and Deputy Director-General at Stats SA, Mr Risenga Maluleke
The President of the
IUSSP, Dr Anastacia Gage
Keynote Speaker,
Professor Tukufu Zuberi
The
Statistician-General of South Africa and Chair of the International Organising
Committee, Dr Pali Lehohla
The Chairperson of the
South African Statistics Council, Mr Ben Mphahlele
The Chair of the Local
Organising Committee Mr Calvin Molongoana
Members of the
Diplomatic Corps
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
The
study of populations has occupied human life since ancient times. It is fully
recorded during Biblical times and we all know that ancient nations of China,
Egypt, Greece and Babylonia as well as the Roman Empire had their fair share in
this enterprise. From time to time, leaders would commission undertakings to
establish the size of populations under their domain for different reasons.
Such reasons would range from estimating the number of potential conscripts for
military enterprises, establishing the tax base, understanding the availability
of labour as well as understanding complex issues like food security. A leader
who, for whatever reason, would undermine understanding the population under
their realm would no doubt be doomed to fail, and inherently hasten the demise
of their nation. This maxim still holds today as it did almost three thousand
years ago.
The
study of populations has also been used for good and sometimes bad reasons. In
many countries it has been used as a basis to illuminate issues that need to be
sustained and those that need attention, thus aiding development at all times.
In some cases, population studies and measurement have been used as a tool to
subjugate others and place them on an unequal path. In our country, South Africa,
population dynamics were in the past used as a tool to divide a people who so
much wanted to be one. A small minority of the society inflicted harm of untold
proportions. It was only when the iconic Nelson Mandela led the ushering in of
democracy that people learnt to know the meaning of equality. On receiving the
results of the first census in the democratic dispensation, Mandela said in
1998:
“The Census itself was one of
the defining milestones in the building of our new nation… At the end of the
day we have detailed, all-inclusive, information about our people which we can
use to achieve our shared goals… It will take time to absorb the full detail of
this intricate picture of our complex society. But the broad outlines should
act as a clarion call to rededicate ourselves, in every sector of our society,
to the historic mission of a generation charged with transforming South African
society in order to eradicate the poverty and imbalances that derive from our
past.”
We all know too well too that
the Sustainable Development Goals were created to transform the world. And, for
the goals to be reached, governments, the private sector and civil society need
to work together more prodigiously. Since the launch of the SDGs, we now have
an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate inclusive growth in South Africa and
Africa to deliver the goals and bring countries, businesses and people together
to embark on a new path towards a more sustainable and better planet for us
all.
Since
the introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015,
considerable work has been done globally to finalise the set of indicators to
be used in tracking progress towards achieving the 169 targets attached to the
17 goals contained within the SDGs. The SDGs give us the opportunity to
collaborate more sharply, more effectively and more deliberately - because it
is an agenda that aims at leaving no one behind, eradicating poverty and
creating conditions for people to trust again in not only political systems but
also in multilateral forms of governance and in international organisations
like the United Nations, the African Union and our various national networks.
The
Sustainable Development Goals can be directly linked to South African
Government’s priority areas and also the National Development Plan (NDP). The
NDP, Vision 2030 presents a long-term strategy to increase employment and
broaden opportunities through education, vocational training and work
experience, public employment programmes, health and nutrition, public
transport and access to information. While there are “quick wins” to be
achieved in each of these areas, the strategies will take time to have a
large-scale effect on poverty. Our main challenge has to do with rolling back
poverty, unemployment and inequality.
On the
other hand Africa’s Agenda 2063 is billed as “the strategic framework for the
socio-economic transformation of the continent over the next 50 years”.
Building on programmes including the Lagos Plan of Action, it is meant to be a
comprehensive plan of action for Africa to position itself as a player in
global affairs and strengthen inter-continental relations
Agenda
2063 is anchored on the AU vision and is based on the following seven
aspirations
1. A
prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth and sustainable development;
2. An
integrated continent, politically united, based on the ideals of Pan Africanism
and the vision of Africa’s Renaissance;
3. An
Africa of good governance, respect for human rights, justice and the rule of
law;
4. A
peaceful and secure Africa;
5. An
Africa with a strong cultural identity, common heritage, values and ethics;
6. An
Africa whose development is people-driven, relying on the potential of African
people, especially its women and youth, and caring for children; and
7.
Africa as a strong, united, resilient and influential global player and
partner.
Agenda
2063, first ten years of implementation has been aligned to the Sustainable
Development Goals and in South Africa we have decided to develop an integrated
indicator framework which puts South Africa’s National Development Plan at the
centre of all development frameworks at local, continental and global levels.
The
integrated Indicator Framework ensures alignment between the NDP, Africa’s
Agenda 2063 and the SDGs. The indicator framework goes further and aligns the
NDP to local development frameworks such as the Provincial Development Plans
and Integrated Development Plans (IDPs).
The integrated Indicator Framework bears testimony to the fact that
governments alone will not be able to respond to the data demands of the post
2015 development agenda, thereby partnerships with civil society and the
private sector on data production are essential.
South
Africa has just launched the SDG indicator baseline and it reflects where the
country is at as the measurement and tracking of SDG indicators begin. The
picture that is emerging, very early on, is “mixed”.
The
2030 Agenda is without doubt our boldest agenda for achieving human progress.
This colossal effort is not about what individual people, governments, business
and organisations do alone – it is about what we can and must do, together, to
better support our efforts in implementing such a boldly transformative agenda.
In
this regard African heads of state at their 29th Summit of the
African Union held in July this year considered the challenges confronting the
continent and decided in favour of dipping their bucket where they are. Based on lessons in East Asia more recently
and the facts of history in Europe and America they looked in their population
and concluded that they have to mobilize resources towards harnessing a
demographic dividend for Africa. That
the host is in Africa and the 19 themes of the 28th Session of the
International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) decided four
years ago in Korea at the 27th Session of the IUSSP are converging
on the fact of a demographic dividend is pleasing in the light of the decision
of the African Heads of State. Your
choice of Africa as the theatre for your discussions is apt as it provides an
important window through which in this week the world’s intellect will be
focused on Africa’s development aspirations – our Agenda 2063 - the Africa we
want and in particular the vexed question of a demographic dividend. As a host country we shall indulge you in the
South Africa’s National Development Plan (NDP) - our Vision 2030. As you prepare for Africa day presentations,
I trust you will use these sets of lenses of the Africa we want and Vision 2030
to contextualize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I trust that you will use the opportunity to
intellectually ground the development challenges and the opportunities that
Africa and South Africa present for the global community, including importantly
how Africa should not miss out on its nascent demographic transition and the
fourth industrial revolution brought about by the ubiquitous technology and the
speed at which it causes us to reimagine the universe and development. Your voice as a community of scientists
immersed in understanding human populations should provide us the insights
needed to change the course of human history with significant degrees of
certainty for the better, especially for Africa.
The
nineteen themes you chose invariably feed into the demographic dividend
narrative. I wish to pick on five of
these themes and juxtapose these against our own reality here in South Africa.
Starting first with the theme of education and labour force let me suggest that
your piercing intellect should reveal to us as policy makers and answer the
question of by what means could we tackle education and its outcomes in terms
of a productive labour force. This is
most relevant in South Africa where one of the biggest challenges we have is
that of unemployment. Second let me
discuss an interrelated issue of the relevance of your theme on children and
the youth in the nineteen themes for this international conference on
population. In this regard our policies
of South Africa also address the question of children and in particular in as
far as how we provide foundational skills within the first five years of their
life. We have through our policy
instruments early childhood development (ECD) programme.
Third
is the theme on number of children born per woman - fertility. South Africa has experienced a rapidly
declining fertility and consequently attained a rapid demographic transition
yet this has not been accompanied by a demographic dividend. This is especially so for Blacks. This reflects the history of colonialism in
general, settler colonialism particularly and apartheid exceptionalism
specifically. The apartheid regime was
so brutal that in its design and architecture as choreographed by prime minister
Verwoerd deprived Blacks education especially mathematics. In the place of providing equal education,
Verwoerd chose to provide Blacks with an inferior education fit for Blacks and
it was called Bantu Education. In the
rest of the continent of Africa there was no apartheid in the way discrimination
was formerly prosecuted in South Africa.
However even these parts of the continent of Africa face a real grim
possibility of a missed demographic gain.
The question is what are we going to do to resolve this problem?
Fourth
let me touch on the space economy under your theme of spatial demography and
relate this to how apartheid used as its central force, a race based
discrimination to effect development. At
that, a narrow and selfish separate development programme was what apartheid
deployed to those who are not white in South Africa. In this regard we shall be keen to learn from
the theme covered by your conference on Spatial Demography.
Fifth
and finally I would like you to open the space on your theme of Population,
Consumption and Environment and introduce the International Comparison
Programme (ICP) which provides a rich source of information on the final
household consumption globally. It
includes price levels experienced in each country and regionally. The nexus of ICP and the IUSSP focal area on
population, consumption and environment should enlighten our policy space and
through the United Nations System of Environmental and Economic Accounting we
should connect the dots. The environment is our greatest concern and South
Africa is conscious of this because it uses dirty energy – coal. We have thus signed the Paris Declaration on
Climate Change to ensure that our policies, laws and practices move rapidly
towards the reduction of using dirty energy.
The
building of a solid scientific base to solve problems current and future will
require the world to go out there and build capacity. Such capacity should
harness the skills and expertise that we currently have and give rise to young
and upcoming offshoots. It requires a hand-holding to young and upcoming
demographers, statisticians, economists and developmental scientist. On our
continent, we have a program of Young African Statisticians which has been
meeting every two years. Young Africans can only succeed if they are part of a
great global establishment. Scientific knowledge becomes meaningful if it is
universal.
To
this day ─ nations both developing and developed ─ invest lots of resources to
understand the number of people they lead and where and how these people live.
The quest to understand these issues has become quite important for both
leaders and the citizenry alike. The premise of making such a public good
available to all at once ensure that those of us who are in public office are
held accountable by the electorate at all times. It creates a robust culture of
public trust in navigating sometimes a complex path in the choices of policies
that nations make. Only nations that have high levels of trust between those
who lead and those who are lead experience a unique bounty of prosperity. Such
nations provide a guarantee to men and women, young and old, that their
aspirations will materialise. In doing so, nations eliminate competition among
the citizenry, thus creating hope that one day their time will come as those
responsible for implementing national policies phase in key program from one
part of the country to the next. This is a world that we all would like to live
in. Such a world can only be achieved with your contributions in the study of
populations. I therefore appeal to all
of you here today ─ and those who will follow on your foot steps for many
generations to come ─ to remain true to form at all times. Those who measure
should never succumb to any temptation whatsoever, or to submit to whatever
pressure, to falsify the count of populations of the world. For, doing so will
not only mean abdicating your responsibilities, but also dragooning the masses
of the world on a road to underdevelopment, subversion and doom. The study of
populations cannot be submitted to petty opinions of sudden impulse and
superstition. It should be rooted in solid science.
Your
conference should therefore reinforce the suggestion for a new compact of a
human race free of the demons of discrimination and the nightmares of war. Importantly it should pave for us pathways
for achieving better results through prosperity that is inclusive of people and
planet. Let us leave no one behind.
With
those words I declare this the 28th Session of the International
Union for the Scientific Study of Population officially open.
