international
SOUTH AFRICA'S SCIENCE QUEST White paper on science and technology presents 'new vision' for next century as Parliament is set to give the vision reality WilLepkowski C&EN Washington
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most exciting saga of science and technology policy is in the making lin the dramatic events currently unfolding in South Africa. Two years and five months after the presidential swearing in of Nelson Mandela, the entire country is setting forth on a vast social and economic journey into the future. The goal of its reconstruction and development program is "eradication of the results of apartheid and building of a democratic, nonracial, and nonsexist future." The plan has several components, outlined in a succession of policy documents, that cover issues ranging from national security to industrial policy to the environment to mining. Lacing through them all, however, is science and technology. That sector achieved an important benchmark this month when the South African Cabinet was given the draft of a white paper called "Preparing for the 21st Century." Preparation of the paper was overseen by the minister for arts, culture, science, and technology, Ben S. Ngubane. Ngubane earlier this month left the ministry to become finance and agricultural minister for KwaZulu/Natal, one of the nine South African provinces. Ngubane, a research physician, was replaced by Lionel Mthali, a former history teacher and minister of education and culture in the same province. The white paper is a sweeping document that is the result of years of groundwork within the African National Congress, the revolutionary party that for almost 80 years fought for an end to apartheid. It covers competitiveness and job creation, quality of life, human resources, environmental sustainability, and the information society. It stresses its grassroots approach through such evocative words as "community, networking, collaboration and common purpose,
playfulness, fun and excitement, openness, and accountability." The paper calls for further dismantling of security-related military and nuclear technologies and putting in their place new sets of programs based on economic growth and social equity. It is high on establishing an international information infrastructure and moving industrial emphasis away from mining and more toward manufacturing. Its unifying element is development of a "national system of innovation" that would integrate the economic and social elements in South Africa with those of an international industrial policy. A 22-person National Advisory Council on Innovation would help guide implementation of the policies. Foundations would be established for the natural sciences and engineering, social
sciences and humanities, and the health sciences. A $45 million innovation fund would be set up to support long-term projects in all sectors. The Cabinet is expected to approve the document, after which it will be sent to Parliament for final approval and the drafting of initial legislation. One example of the changes ahead is centralization of all research funding into one agency—the Foundation for Research Development, whose name would be changed to the National Research Foundation (NRF). Created under NRF would be agencies for natural sciences and engineering, social sciences and humanities, and health sciences. This arrangement is already seen as troublesome by the research councils that fear the loss of autonomy. The principal North American individual instrumental in the development of the white paper is Canadian James Mullin, currently a policy consultant. While an officer with Canada's International Development Research Center, Mullin helped organize a 1991 meeting on reconstructing science and technology policy in South Africa, and in 1993 he wrote a preliminary report on its findings. Then he was part of a 12-person group of mostly black South Africans that last year prepared a so-called green paper outlining the problems of the science and technology structure in the country.
U.S. presence in South Africa's science and technology efforts is growing. Last December at the second meeting of the U.S.-South Africa Binational Commission, commission cochairmen Vice President AI Gore and South African Deputy President Thabo M. Mbeki signed an umbrella science and technology agreement. By July several joint efforts were begun—involving projects in science and math education, infectious disease research, environmental monitoring, climate prediction, information technology, and commercialization of technology.
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international The report presented options for rebuild ing the system and received responses from all sectors of South African society. The group then prepared the draft white paper. Both papers are available in full text on the World Wide Web (http://wn. apc.org/opengov/policy.htm). "What is so remarkable about what is happening," explains Mullin, "is that with this paper they are trying to balance a vari ety of competing forces in order to devel op this new policy. Most of the institutions are holdovers from the old repressive re gime. It would have been tempting for the new leaders to be vindictive. They could simply have said, 'Let's rid the place of them.' But they didn't. They decided to build on what they had. They have tried to see how by rational policy-making they can transform these institutions. But they aren't just asking how technology can be used for economic development. They are asking what it can do for the poor people." It is a huge organizational job, but the leadership is going about it systematical ly by assessing the situation honestly. "We have in place an ailing national sys tem of innovation," the white paper
says. "It is fragmented and is neither co aims, science and technology funding ordinated within itself nor with national will have to increase by a rate much goals; innovation capacity is not being higher than that. Unless such growth is built, but is being eroded; national invest achieved, the document says, future ex ment in R&D is not increasing relative to port targets will not be met. To do that, gross domestic product, but falling. This the government will have to reverse a decline is taking place at a time when we funding tide that already is going out. South Africa's R&D spending has de can ill afford it. "links between industry, the science- clined from 1.04% of GDP in 1987, to engineering-technology system, and eco 0.75% in 1993, to 0.68% in 1995. Most of the research in South Africa is nomic, education, and training policies are fragmented and uncoordinated. A substan performed by eight councils, led in fund tial part of government-sector resources in ing by the Council for Scientific & Indus science and technology has been chan trial Research, the Agricultural Research neled to military and nuclear research and Council, and the Medical Research Coun development with negligible benefits for cil. Above them sits the Foundation for the civilian population. Because of race Research Development (soon to become and gender inequity in educational oppor NRF) which would also dole out grants tunities, the country is desperately short to universities under a revamped peer re of a representative and skilled science- view system. An overall coordinating engineering-technology workforce. Natu mechanism will be a National Advisory ral resources such as water are in short Council on Science & Technology re supply, and environmental degradation is porting to the minister for arts, culture, science, and technology. A National Sci continuing at an alarming rate." In its development strategy, the gov ence & Technology Forum, established ernment is aiming at an annual econom last year, is made up of outside advisers ic growth rate of 6%. The paper says for who inform the government on the coun the country to meet its development try's science and technology needs.
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Two further activities are now taking place to help the country set its policy directions. The Department of Arts, Culture, Science & Technology has commissioned two studies—a research and technology audit "to assess the nature, value, and distribution of technology and associated lines of research throughout the government, business, and 'tertiary' sectors" and a research and technology foresight study to identify the technologies most relevant to economic development and an optimal quality of life. The African National Congress' victory over apartheid has been elating but also is grounded in reality. The country remains rife with conflict within the revolutionary movement, whose more extreme goals still are to overturn all the institutions remindful of South Africa's brutally repressive past. ' The government is trying to work out a fundamental underlying conflict,'' says international technology consultant Charles Weiss of Bethesda, Md. 'They have this white managerial and professional structure in science and technology that is necessary to maintain the system. At the same time,
the power is held by blacks who don't have the skills in such large numbers." As a result, says Weiss, many white science and technology professionals are concerned about their future. "At the same time, many of the younger revolutionaries who postponed their education in order to fight for independence are critical of the new black leaders for keeping the whites in place." One thing the ruling party is trying to do is open up continuing dialogue with the poor. Mullin says he finds it extraordinary that the white paper was translated, for example, into Zulu. "Imagine what it is like explaining the concept of a national system of innovation in Zulu," he says. "But they are committed to trying to communicate these ideas. "It's one thing to approve of the paper, another to act on it. So we have to see whether there will be support to let the paper through and implement it." As Mullin explains it, the Arts, Culture, Science & Technology Ministry is one of the lesser ministries within the South African government, lacking the power of the Finance or Industry & Trade Ministries.
"They can only succeed by persuasiveness," Mullin says. "But, for example, Trevor Manuel, head of the Finance Ministry, is knowledgeable about science and technology and is sympathetic to it. So is Alec Erwin, trade and industry minister. "These are important ministers and they know the people in science and technology very well." And, he points out, Deputy President and likely successor to Mandela, Thabo M. Mbeki, is also close to science and technology as key issues in government. It's speculated that a top level advisory body for science and technology would be housed in the deputy president's office. Kenneth Thomas, science counselor for the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, is optimistic. "They have the will, infrastructure, and teachers to make it work," he says. "But there is a political schism that is saying science is a luxury; why buy a microscope when what you really need is clean water. So there is a modest danger that the transition will be choked off by this kind of thinking. But I think they do have what it takes to make a good transition."^
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