MDG

CapacityPlus.org -focused on the health workforce needed to achieve the MDGs

KMAadmin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:56:56 -0600

CapacityPlus is a USAID-funded global project focused on the health workforce needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. CapacityPlus offers state-of-the-art expertise, models, tools, training, and analyses adapted to each context. These services help countries move closer to having the right health worker in the right place with the right skills and support. We work with public, nonprofit, faith-based, and for-profit organizations contributing to better human resources for health. The site features:

News and stories from the project
Tools, resources, and publications in our Knowledge Library
A weekly summary on health workforce news from around the globe, with links
A listing of relevant conferences and meetings
A blog with perspectives on the global health workforce challenge—and solutions.

CapacityPlus helps partner countries achieve significant progress in addressing the health worker crisis building on the accomplishments of the Capacity Project, which worked in 47 countries. Capacity Partners Website www,capacityplus.org

KM & Governance

Generic guidelines for mainstreaming drylands issues into National Development Frameworks

carol — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:59:43 -0600

The Generic Drylands Mainstreaming Guidelines have been developed by the UNDP-DDC in close collaboration with the UNEP and UNDP/Global Environment Facility (GEF) Global Support Unit. This document provides broad generic steps for mainstreaming environment and drylands issues into national development frameworks, as well lessons drawn from various countries on environment and drylands mainstreaming.

It is important for the implementation of poverty reduction strategies and the achievement of the MDGs to take into account drylands issues and challenges, especially how they impact the poorest communities. These communities have the lowest per capita GDP and the highest infant mortality rates. The combination of high variability in environmental conditions and relatively high levels of poverty leads to situations where human populations can be extremely sensitive to changes in the ecosystem. If drylands are not mainstreamed, they will lose out in resource allocation. These guidelines have been developed with the aim of influencing action at several levels of planning and policy engagement, because it is necessary to make drylands visible at all levels.

The guidelines have been informed by lessons drawn from 21 countries on mainstreaming environment into development frameworks with a particular focus on drylands issues, and by a review made of other international organizations’ guidelines on the same subject. This concerted action will create the synergistic and critical pressure needed to put and keep drylands issues at a place of importance on the developmental agenda.

Information Provided by Carol Lombard, Department of Social Development Population Website

KM & the Environment

Sex Politics. Reports from the Front Lines

carol — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:09:27 -0600

This publication from GTZ can be used as an instrument for the application of concepts, approaches and methods for transforming unequal gender relations. Each topic is introduced by a short outline of the issue, followed by subsequent steps of action. A project example illustrates the application of the method in a selected sociocultural context.

From the introduction:

"Gender equality is a necessary element to secure sustainable livelihoods of women, men and their children. Gender Equality is not only a goal in itself, but is also necessary to achieve all eight Millennium Development Goals. In particular, gender equality will ensure success in the areas of poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability, HIV/AIDS, child mortality, maternal health and primary education. Many international, regional and national agreements foreground the importance of gender equality to development cooperation, in donor- and partner countries. In their daily work, actors and stakeholders can refer to the following documents:

Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979)
Beijing Platform for Action (1995)
Millennium Development Declaration (2000)
UN-Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (2000)
Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality (2004)
BMZ Concept for the Promotion of Equal Participation by Women and Men in Development Process (2001/05)
UN-Resolution 1820 on Sexual Violence against Civilians in Conflict (2008)
Accra Agenda for Action (2008)
BMZ Genderaktionsplan (2009)

Information Provided by Carol Lombard, Department of Social Development Population Website

KM & Social Challenges

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance

storytelling — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:29:00 -0600

The Ibrahim Index of African Governance is a comprehensive ranking of African countries according to governance quality. Funded and led by an African institution, the Ibrahim Index aims to be Africa’s leading assessment of governance that informs and empowers citizens to hold their governments and public institutions to account. Thus it is hoped to stimulate debate in a constructive way and establish a framework for good governance in Africa.

The Ibrahim Index measures the delivery of public goods and services to citizens by government and non-state actors. The Ibrahim Index uses indicators across four main pillars: Safety and Rule of Law; Participation and Human Rights; Sustainable Economic Opportunity; and Human Development as proxies for the quality of the processes and outcomes of governance.

The Ibrahim Index assesses governance against 84 criteria, making it the most comprehensive collection of qualitative and quantitative data that measures governance in Africa. The criteria are divided into four main categories and 13 sub-categories. The indicators that make up the sub-categories are based either on official data (OD) or expert assessment (EA).

The 2009 Ibrahim Index includes new indicators more regularly updated, and therefore more immediately reflective of current reality. The index has also been extended this year to consider the entire continent, not just the sub-Saharan region, following consultation with stakeholders and in consideration of the geographic and political links between all African countries.

In addition, the Ibrahim Index will be compiled in partnership with African academics and researchers. Already, experts from various African institutions including: Afrobarometer, the American University in Cairo, the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA – in Senegal), and the Institut de Recherche Empirique en Economie Politique (IREEP- in Benin) support the Foundation’s research team. These experts sit on the Academic Advisory Council and Technical Committee, whose work is overseen by the Foundation’s Director of Research, Dr Hania Farhan.

We are deeply committed to this partnership with institutions on the continent and to developing capacity within them so that in the years to come they will be full partners in the compilation of the Ibrahim Index. This is part of our commitment to further entrench the continent’s ownership of governance issues and to improve the quality and availability of data.

The lack of sufficiently robust and comprehensive data to assess African progress is striking in all the components of the index. This unavailability of data has led us to exclude a number of indicators, particularly those that assess poverty and vital aspects of health service delivery, which are major issues for developing countries. This is a pragmatic choice and finding strong poverty and health indicators in future years will be a core priority for us.

Mo Ibrahim Foundation and Index Website

KM & Governance

Subversion and Rationalization of Knowledge Systems for Revealing Modernity in Africa

KMAadmin — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 05:26:31 -0600

Author: Jacques L. Hamel (1) UNECA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Summary: The paper provides a speculative reflection on the power of modern science, technology, innovation (STI) and knowledge systems for revealing some distinctive style of modernity in Africa. The focus is on uncovering the necessary mental or intellectual costumes required for the modernization of STI systems as the backbones of modernity through a ‘Strategy of Subversion and Rationalization’. This modernization process is essentially the passage from close, self-confirming, faith-based, conventional or customary knowledge systems to essentially evidence-based, scientifically-established and technically-proven knowledge systems. In these systems scientific knowledge is construed as a theory of the real and as a technology of truth and understood as the epistemological foundation of any vision of an idiosyncratic form of Afro-modernity. The scientific method purges Abrahamic and Shamanic worldviews of non-scientific constituents and opens a path from the pre-modern, totemic, enchanted, patriarchal and over-religious worldviews and mindsets to the more secular, rational, liberal, mechanical, enlightened and scientific worldviews and mindsets of modernity. This paradigmatic shift requires championing the tyranny of the scientific method and the rule of technique as well as promoting decisive scientific arbitrations, increased technical mediations and a redefinition of STI’s relationships with religious, cultural, social and economic life. The necessary capacities for achieving this shift toward more modern scientific and technical knowledge orders are grouped into eight areas.

Capacities to Formulate Effective Visions and Strategies
Capacities to Create a Conducive / Enabling Climate
Capacities to Strengthen Ownership, Leadership and Commitment
Capacities to Design Effective Policy Instruments, Institutions and Systems
Capacities to Forge Partnerships, Alliances, Relationships
Capacities to Advance Regional Cooperation and Integration
Capacities to Double Funding and Investment in STI Programmes and Activities
Capacities to foster Knowledge Societies / Economies /Management
Conclusion: Capable Paradigms, Worldviews, Mindsets and Practices for the Modernization of Traditional Knowledge Systems

Introduction

Whatever theories of knowledge (Audi, 1998), of science (Kuhn, 1962), of modernity (Heller, 1999) and development (Preston, 1996) one embraces, the essence of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cannot be met and there is no access to an Afro-modernity of any kind without the rigorous exploitation and use of modern science, technology, innovation and knowledge. Effective STI systems drive countries forward along the development ladder and along the transition to modernity. Halving poverty and hunger – the essence of MDGs – cannot be achieved without upgrading and modernizing STI systems in the African region. It cannot be achieved without new visions, new paradigms and new strategies. This is what this paper is about.

To be sure many African countries are making remarkable progress in STI in spite of meager budgetary resources and enormous cultural, social, economic and political constraints. The progress is real and encouraging, even if government’ pledges are not fulfilled. But much of the region has been historically incapable of fully exploiting the power of STI for its development. Scientific and technical capacities remain low, with relatively few researchers, scientists, engineers, doctors, innovators, publishers and patentees per capita. This low capacity is well documented and is beyond dispute (with RSA a particular case).

Meeting MDGs and uncovering some variety or brand of Afro-modernity requires specific strategies and related capacities that are presently lacking. It requires strategic capacities to carry out uphill struggles and expend considerable efforts ‘simultaneously’ on an extensive range of battlefronts or battlegrounds. These capacities are grouped below into eight areas.

The first area focuses on effective visions and strategies and on building or strengthening the necessary broad subversion and rationalization capacities to meet the spirit of MDGs and to uncover a modern Africa. These call for assembling related basic, critical thinking, policy-making, adaptation, absorption, innovation and management capacities.
The second area concerns the strengthening of capacities to put in place a conducive or enabling climate for the modernization of STI systems, stressing a Renaissance or a revival perspective, faith in instrumental rationality, intellectual vigor, equal opportunities, true or factual knowledge and modern-day mythologies. The enabling climate should make possible the overall subversion and rationalization of pre-modern worldviews and long-established STI systems.
The third area highlights the importance of capacities in policy ownership, leadership and commitment, in line with the African STI policy narrative agreed at the level of Heads of State. The African development agenda has to be more in the hands of Africans and less dependent on foreign policy narratives, wisdom, ideologies and hand-outs.
The fourth area underlines the necessary capacities to develop the systemic and synergistic aspects of a set of two dozens typical STI institutions, constituting the major policy instruments of a ‘standard’ STI system. Here the popular modern innovation system narrative has to be deconstructed and re-contextualized for pre-modern cosmologies, cultures, societies and economies.
The fifth area underscores the capacities to forge partnerships and other forms of collaboration to advance STI systems. Nowadays no country – large or small – can advance an STI agenda alone. Every country needs to develop internal and external relationships, such as associations, linkages, twinnings, alliances and joint ventures.
The sixth area focuses on capacities to advance regional integration and the sharing of STI resources, expertise, institutional assets and markets. This is an area where African countries could and should be making more progress. Without more integration Africa may be too fractured, divided, fractioned and balkanized to access modernity.
The seventh area concentrates on capacities to fund and invest in STI programs and activities - an area historically rich in government or public promises and pledges but rather poor in follow-up and implementation. Public investments in STI have to double, as already agreed by African Heads of State, to jumpstart the transition to modernity. Private investments (FDI = $US 50 billion in 2007), on the other hand, should increase dramatically in the years ahead as they reveal resource-rich Africa as an immense energy reserve and fuel station universally coveted for powering the global technological engine.
The eighth area draws attention to meeting the emerging challenges of knowledge societies, economies, networks and management. Here there is a need to inject more ‘Enlightenment’ and scientific knowledge into African cosmologies, idioms, religions, beliefs and cultures in order to reveal the face of a distinctive Afro-modernity - hopefully not as eco-violent, disillusioned, melancholic and material as the North Atlantic mode of modernity. And there is a need to understand that knowledge is not additive but transformative. That means that some knowledge, acquired through acculturation and socialization, has to be unlearned, deleted, subtracted or deducted to make room for new knowledge. This may rank as the most important and costly blunder that African STI policymakers are making.

In conclusion African stakeholders are urged to build capacities to investigate, undermine and transform traditional or pre-modern knowledge systems with up to date scientific data, insights, practices, worldviews and mindsets. They are encouraged to re-imagine the African region as a modern one. For this it might be necessary to re-cosmologize, re-mythologize, ‘re-prophetize’, re-charlatanize and guide the evolution of the region toward some unique type of post-totemic, post-enchanted, post-phallocratic, post-shamanic, post-Abrahamic and post-colonial region.

Capacities to Formulate Effective Visions and Strategies

There is a need to strengthen capacities to develop and implement effective STI strategies, including subversion and rationalization strategies (promoted by this author). There is a crying need to fill the total lack of strategy behind MDGs. Various development strategies have been formulated around the idea of building capacities to lead, innovate, leapfrog, assimilate, follow, imitate, differentiated by sectors or areas. Other strategies have revolved around building capacities to exploit available technology, particularly new technologies, such as bio, agro, nano and digital. Other strategies have focused on knowledge management, on upgrading indigenous knowledge and technologies, on technology transfer and on research. But some important elements of any successful strategy for meeting MDGs and accessing modernity are still missing. A Strategy of Subversion and Rationalization of Traditional STI Systems is a complementary strategy addressing some neglected – if not completely ignored - aspects of STI for development. This strategy uses the vision of a reborn, renewed or reawakened Africa developed by a dozen African leaders since the 1960s and it also uses the vision of the Enlightenment philosophers and thinkers who designed the modernity project. In short, the strategy relies on modern STI to subvert and rationalize pre-modern mythologies, traditions, customs, ideologies, languages, religions, dogmas, credos, superstitions and cultures, which may hold back the march of STI in the African region.

Subversion Capacities

These refer to:

Capacities to reconstruct prior assumptions and reevaluate known facts, to challenge existing shared fundamental conjectures and overcome established community resistance
Capacities to question, overthrow or overturn systems of principles and convictions as well as forms of dominance, control and power incompatible with or not sustained by individuation, autonomy, subjectivity, self-determination, democratic rationality and other features of modernity
Capacities to challenge and transform un-enabling STI governance structures
Capacities to uproot totalizing, oppressive or terror structures that obstruct the way to modern manners of grasping and dealing with reality
Capacities to evolve more pragmatic, empirical, disillusioned, disenchanted and mechanical worldviews
Capacities to overcome pre-modern cosmological and ideological formations, whether home-grown or alien
Capacities to ‘de-privatize’ African States and privatize economies (including farming lands)

Rationalization capacities

These refer to:

Capacities to absorb the scientific method and be guided by instrumental reason
Capacities to rationally use STI to mathematize and channel the forces of nature for human purposes
Capacities to apply accurate calculation of technical means to achieve precise ends
Capacities to trim down or rationalize uncanny STI processes and absurd transaction costs (WB estimates that it takes an average of 68 days before exports are allowed to leave Angola, including 25 days to prepare documents, eight days to clear customs and another 24 days to get through port)
Capacities to comprehend scientific revolutions and move beyond Islam, Christianity and Witchcraft
Capacities to reorder traditional agriculture by cutting down on or by reordering mythological inputs: long periods of fasting (half the year in some African countries), numerous religious holidays, prayers for rain, no pork or wine or beer, sacrificial goats, holy water, women role as food purveyors, girls exclusive burdening role in fetching water and wood for cooking, children as fences, fear of ‘unnatural’ or ungodly GM crops, agricultural “slave” workers, etc.)

These subversion and rationalization capacities are required to unleash the full power of STI and reveal a unique form of modernity in the African region.

Capacities to Create a Conducive / Enabling Climate for STI

Open-minded stakeholders and scientists should strive to achieve a paradigmatic ‘renewal’ (ubuntu) requiring structural or fundamental reforms of the inner working of African societies. African STI policymakers seldom disagree on the fundamentals because they prefer to avoid proposing a coherent vision of Africa’s future, which would clearly show the inescapable pain of change and which would go beyond wishful thinking and pipe dreams. A workable strategy for the transformation of the foundations of African STI systems is still lacking. This strategy should achieve a shift toward scientific ways of observing, analyzing and knowing or toward science as the latest myth or the new religion of the time that can propel the continent into some original form of modernity.

STI policymakers need to understand that the emergence of some brand of distinctive modernity on the African continent goes much further than the simple ownership and display of modernity’s most visible technological products, tools, appliances, gadgets and gizmos. It is the hidden or unconscious background thinking that should be the object of close examination and challenge by African STI policymakers. In this regard they could climb on the shoulders of the great Enlightenment philosophers, thinkers, fighters and scientists of the 17th and 18th centuries (Descartes, Bacon, Voltaire, Kant …) who designed the modernity project with the concern for plain instrumental rationality at its core.

Policy-makers and strategists should encourage essential modernization processes, which would open the way to STI development and progress, such as autonomization, individuation, demystification, feminization (less patriarchal forms), democratization, liberalization, laicization, trans-nationalization, systematization, differentiation, technocratization and humanization processes. But they should also keep in mind that scientific illumination, technical action and modernity offer only a partial escape from the human condition.

Stakeholders should appreciate that mindsets, thinking and ideas are more essential than money or technologies or political promises, etc., in shaping the evolution of STI. Indeed, “The world we have created is the product of our thinking – it cannot be changed without changing our thinking” (Einstein). They should also realize that Africa has no other choice than to go through the pain of having to abandon some highly cherished received ideas, keeping in mind that “Ideas are the most painful things in the world” (Galbraith).

There is a need to engage true scientists and STI communities in public understanding of modern thinking and modern STI and there is a need to cultivate a greater awareness of the role and power of thinking and STI in development. Science is not only a popular buzzword and not only a stock of knowledge but above all a technique and method of thinking (calculative / essential / perspectival…) and it cuts like razor blades as it destroys traditional systems of customary bodies of beliefs. It is essentially an atheistic venture or undertaking built on a rejection of religious authority and supernatural or ‘divine’ causes or explanations necessarily giving rise to more laicized, disenchanted and enlightened societies than long-established over-religious or over-shamanized African ones. In modernity faith-guided knowledge systems do not force nature into fixed old-fashioned boxes.

In order for STI to fully operate on many African societies it is necessary to strip current worldviews of shamanic mysticism or magic, providential or divine intrusions, amazing archangels, absurd limbos, far-fetched miracles, occult forces and charlatan tactics, pretenses, frauds and deceptions. Modernity is in actual fact accessed through scientific rationalization and instrumental rationality. In this perspective imported Evangelical and Qur’anic models of reality, although of relatively recent human construction and bearer of positive civilizational values, lack decisive values for accessing modernity, such as democratic governance; the full utilization of feminine talents and aptitudes; affection and care for nature; a concern for the future (down here); superiority of scientific methods and hypotheses over ‘gaseous’ prophetic knowledge; a strong focus on life before death; and a less fatalistic attitude toward the lifeworld and poverty. Ancient sacred religious texts and documents - not exactly hotsprings of fresh worldviews - may constitute virtual owner's manuals for one’s life, especially for Africans-of-one-book, which under certain conditions are not conducive to paradigmatic innovation and to a swift transition to modernity. Evangelical, Qur’anic and Shamanic models of reality are traditional or pre-modern social constructions far from or quite different from modern scientific constructions of reality. From time to time our responses to aging or bogus realities should be one of denial, defiance or rebellion. “Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane” (Philip K. Dick).

Euro-modernity, in addition to overturning the kings’ power, mostly came as a reaction, through subversive conflicts, wars and revolutions, against the autocracy, abuse of power, exploitation, repression, colonialism, cruelty, misogynism and obscurantism of European medieval Christian churches. Islam, on the other hand, has been better in some respects than Christianity as regard science since it is less ridden of shocking miracles and outrageous tales that are contrary to common sense and to the known laws of physics and nature. The immense contribution of Islam to science in medieval time is well documented and beyond disagreements. But modernization of these pre-modern mythologies would bechallenging, if not suicidal, to the culture of salvation, of subjugation and of non-questioning (faith-predetermined beliefs) of both Islamic and Christian Africa. A culture of censure and contempt for science is not in line with the autonomous modern inquisitive subject. It is not in line with science as a way of thinking (Carl Sagan), as a method (Descarte), as a culture (UNESCO) and with modernity’s inbuilt worldviews and mindsets. In this regard facts speak for themselves: the contribution of sub-Saharan Africa to modern science in terms of scientific publications, patents, tech licensing, tech-intensive exports, investments in tech, and so on, remains stuck marginally at less than 1% of world total. Only a paradigms shift can fundamentally turn this situation around.

STI policy-makers could be more active in advocating a science-based knowledge order (Latour, 1987). Concretely this implies prioritizing (non-fixed) scientific knowledge and theories over Holy Scriptures, revelations, divinations and fantasies. It implies evolving more worldly / post-charmed societies. It implies reversing the current trends of building many times more churches and mosques than tech or research centers (about 100 times more in some African countries). It implies scrutinizing the conjectures, postulations and standpoints of Imperial Islam, Constantinian Christianity and ‘Magical Witchcraft’ in relation to a laicized, demystified and disenchanted modernity. It implies sacralizing science, the scientific method and scientific knowledge.

Capacities to Design Effective Policy Instruments, Institutions and Systems

There is an abundant literature on STI systems and system analysis but the main thrust of the narrative needs to be de-contextualized and re-constructed for African societies, weighed down by pre-modern ways of apprehending and operating on reality. Policy-makers should aim at increasing the general performance and integration of STI systems and subsystems. These are typically made up of a set of standard institutions, comprising among others: 1- Ministry or Commission or Council for STI policymaking; 2- STI Budget; 3- STI Funds; 4- Taxation; 5-Subsidies; 6-Scholarships; 7- Research Grants; 8- Venture Capital; 9- Centers of Excellence; 10- Incubators and Tech Parks; 11- IP; 12- Standards; 13- R&D; 14- Support; 15- Databases and Information; 16- Academies; 17- Professional / Learned Societies; 18- Parliamentary Committees; 19- Recognitions, Prizes and Rewards; 20- Interdepartmental Forums; 21- Chief Science Advisors; 22- Conferences and Seminars; 23- Science Clubs; 24- Science Days and Open Doors; 25- Extension, 26- Radio Tutorials.

Capacities to Forge Valuable Partnerships, Alliances and Relationships

Policy makers should forge useful Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), Government-University-Industry Partnerships and North-South and South-South Partnerships. They should nurture bilateral cooperation and support collaborative research to benefit from international or multilateral STI organizations. They should implement international agreements in STI, twin STI organizations, muster involvement of youth, mobilize private sector and rally the Diaspora. They should enlist NGOs engaged in STI, participate in relevant and promising IGOs activities and programmes, favor clusters of enterprises around industrial innovative leaders and liaise with RSA’s strengths in STI.

Capacities to Advance Regional and Sub-Regional Cooperation and Integration

African countries should work more closely with AU-NEPAD/ST and AMCOST. They should expand subregional and regional ‘teamwork’ (no country has the resources to do it single-handedly); share regional scientific and technological facilities (metrology, etc...); guarantee free movement of scientists and tech entrepreneurs across the region; and support regional initiatives (regional meetings, regional networks, regional forums). They should define common positions on regional and international policies; develop potentialities, specializations and complementarities at subregional and regional levels; carry out joint exhibitions and set up shared demonstration units; and conduct regional and subregional STI studies. They should strengthen the STI components of regional and subregional organizations, institutions and associations (such as ECOWAS, PTA, COMESA, SADC, etc.); be more active in emerging regional and subregional STI networks (ATPS, AAS, Magtech, Incubators and Parks, etc.) and consider paid memberships and active participation in regional centers and projects (ARCT, ARCEDEM, OAPI-ARIPO, ARSO …).

Capacities to Fund and Invest in STI Programmes and Activities

There is a need to double funding across the board for STI programmes and activities. This need is recognized by the highest authorities and is related to a wide range of funding instruments, means and objectives, such as the now famous 1% of GDP for R&D (long history of decisions, pledges and deceptions); national budget for STI infrastructures, institutions, training…; FDI; micro-credit; venture capital; licensing; fiscal incentives; donors and foundations; national and regional STI funds (recent AMCOST-instituted and AfDB administered fund); financial assistance to tech-based micro-enterprises; research allowances; fellowships; and open source software / open access info and knowledge.

Capacities to Meet the Challenges of Knowledge Societies / Economies / Management

Capacities to assess and upgrade knowledge in the African region must be strengthened considerably to meet the daunting challenges of knowledge societies and economies. To begin with, knowledge in Africa is somewhat:

Tacit, orally-transmitted, symbolic, figurative, local, rural
Fractured (Islam / Christian divide), compartmented (by ethnicity), balkanized (by six colonizing powers), fragmented (+ 1000 idioms and worldviews) and atomized (not part of any advanced knowledge networks)
‘Unscientific’ (disregarding scientific revolutions), mythologized (with indigenous and foreign superstitions), de-contextualized (uprooted and transplanted from more technologically-advanced areas), ‘canned’ (ready-made and pre-packaged), monopolized (non-sharing knowledge practices and ethos) and unprotected (except by diversion tactics)
Underused (scientists as taxi drivers), misappropriated (by power hungry sources), under or mis-professionalized (shamanic knowledge) and misapplied (ecocidal)
Eroded (extinct or dying languages and knowledge), drained (brains seeking greener pasture), rarely rented (against royalty payments), and too often plagued with spirituo-, mystico-, magico-, Euro- and phallo-centricity.

The ability of a worker, a firm, a country or a region to assess a given stock of knowledge such as African and modern knowledge, sort it, filter it, assimilate it and apply it to commercial or developmental ends is critical for any type of development and for accessing modernity. It is critical for unlearning / relearning and for the acquisition of key modern knowledge and competencies. It is critical for entering into the 21st century global knowledge society (Hamel, 2005). It is critical for deconstructing a pre-modern reality acquired through acculturation and socialization and it is critical for learning a new version of reality: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn” (A. Toffler).

Policymakers should emphasize the application of public domain knowledge and technologies (World Economic Forum, 2003) and adopt strategies that make the most of the latest technical knowledge and new technological regime (ICTs, bio, eco, agro …). They should recognize the value of indigenous knowledge, technologies and solutions, adopt green technologies and espouse the sustainable development paradigm. They should also put in place a monitoring system for measuring knowledge societies / economies (indicators, statistics, benchmarks, polls, studies…). In this regard African countries should support an AU initiative designed to measure the advancement of STI systems.

Conclusion: Capable Paradigms, Worldviews, Mindsets and Practices for the Modernization of Traditional Knowledge Systems and for Revealing a Typical Afro-Modernity

It is important to understand the reasons for the relative failure of Nyerre’s Ujamaa, Mobutu’s Authenticité, Sengor’s Négritude, Nkruma’s Conciencism, Kenyata’s Harambee, Wade’s Omega, Bouteflika’s Ennahda Movement, Mbeki’s ‘Call to Rebellion’ - let alone the vision of the Commission for Africa and a host of other appeals for an African ‘Renaissance’ (African Century, etc.). Perhaps there is some truth in the idea that “A problem cannot be solved with the mindset that created it” (Einstein).

Modernity in Africa will never be uncovered with the manipulation of economic variables alone, including external financial assistance, but it will certainly necessitate sound economic policies and strategies. Much of the development discourse in Africa revolves around economics, finance and money but modernity, in addition to being a technology-driven economic process, is essentially a cultural and scientific process, with the scientific technique and tradition at its center.

The scientific method provides tools for resisting ‘intellectual domestication’ and for embracing more modern or post-modern mythologies (Lyotard, 1991). A majority of Africans (80%) swears by or are ruled by Abrahamic mythologies and statistics show that less than 1 in 100 Africans escapes the Islamic or Christian system of beliefs he or she is born in. That clearly shows the strong appeal, fascination, addiction, dependence and the irresistible charm of these two great pre-modern religious solitudes. The scientific method provides a way out of this blind lottery and of this medieval intellectual trapping. Could subversive scientism be the new ‘religion’ of the time that could bridge some century-old divides in the African region and that could at last transform a traditional reality into a modern one?

There is a need to engineer a fundamental shift from Islamism, Christianism and Shamanism / Animism toward Scientism and Technologism. There is a need to engineer a transition from self-confirming systems of medieval thinking, superstitions and prejudices to modern scientific worldviews and empirical knowledge systems.

There is a need to be aware that science, technology and society are co-emerging, co-evolutive and mutually constitutive of each other and to be aware of the seduction of triumphant techno-scientific dogmas (Winner, 1977), which may lead to the devastation, excesses, wastefulness and pathologies of the post-industrial consumerist cultures of modernity. Perhaps STI policy makers should support the creation in each African country of free-thinking think-tanks to reflect on and promote an Afro-modernity essentially based on holding fast to the scientific method, as a new dogma, and on adopting scientific knowledge, which would provide an increasingly detailed and refined understanding of nature, the world and Africans in it. But it is also important to resist worshiping science and technology as a new God or a new Savior and not to let science and technology unduly monopolize African destinies.

A renewed narrative is needed, indulging less on minor variations around the status quo, to address pressing issues related to cosmological revolutions, technological effervescence, globalization, urbanization, energy crises, food shortages, environmental degradations, intercontinental competition and epidemics. It is also needed for the integration of science and technology in wider agricultural, industrial, budgetary, trade, social and educational policies.

New knowledge orders and new paradigms do not come effortlessly and without problems because very few free-thinking scientists have the strength, the courage, the moral fiber and the guts to challenge established truths, because current knowledge orders are considered sacred whereas any criticism is considered blasphemous or politically incorrect, because existing entrenched paradigms have to be displaced or replaced by new, disturbing and much less magnetic ones and because “the competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proof” (Thomas Kuhn). In the end the competition between rival paradigms comes down to a choice between fundamentally incompatible worldviews and modes of cultural, social and economic life.

There is a need to better appreciate science as a mode of subversive thinking, as a means of achieving the systematic destruction of conventional / medieval / pre-modern realities and as a way to reconstruct / modernize / re-order realities from new fundamentals and from new perspectives. Accordingly, African stakeholders are advised to build various capacities, as discussed in this paper, to probe, subvert and rationalize traditional or pre-modern knowledge systems with contemporary scientific facts, understandings, worldviews, mindsets and practices. They are advised to spare no effort in order to re-cosmologize, re-mythologize, ‘re-prophetize’, re-charlatanize and re-direct the evolution of the African reality toward some original form of post-totemic, post-enchanted, post-phallocratic, post-shamanic (magic- and witchcraft-free) and post-Abrahamic region, or toward an Islam-free and Christian-free scientifically-enlightened post-colony. For this evolution to materialize perhaps the first priority of policymakers could be to strengthen capacities to imagine a different and modern Africa and imagine means to attain it. This could be the most urgent and central task of African STI policymakers at the beginning of the 21st century.

Bibliography

Audi, Robert (1998) Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, Routledge.
Dreyfus, H. L. (1993) “Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism, Art, Technology, and Politics”, from The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, edited by Charles Guignon. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 289-316.
Durbin, Paul T., ed. (1984) A Guide to the Culture of Science, Technology, and Medicine. New York: Free Press.
Dzobo, N. K. (1992) ‘African Symbols And Proverbs As Source Of Knowledge And Truth, In Person And Community’,
Ghanaian Philosophical Studies, I. Kwasi W. and Gyekye, K. (Eds.), Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, Washington, D.C.
Hamel, J.L. (2005) ‘Knowledge for sustainable development in Africa: towards new policy initiatives’, World Review of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, Vol. 2, Nos. 3/4, pp.216–243.
Heidegger, M. (1977) “Science and Reflection”, from The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, Translated by
William Lovitt. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
Heidegger, M. (1977b) “The Question Concerning Technology”, from The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, Trans. William Lovitt, New York: Harper and Row Publishers.
Heller, A. (1999) A theory of modernity, Blackwell Publishing, 328 pages.
Ihde, D. (1993) Philosophy of Technology: An Introduction. New York: Paragon House.
InterAcademy Council (2003) Inventing a better future: strategy for building worldwide capacities in science and technology and realizing the promise and potential of African agriculture, Amsterdam, Holland.
Kuhn, T. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press
Krogh, G.V., Nonaka I., Nishiguchi T. (2000) Knowledge Creation: a source of value, St. Martin's Press, New York.
Laporte, B. (2003) Sharing Knowledge for Development: Knowledge as a Currency, Knowledge & Learning Services, World Bank, Washington, D.C.
Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Lyotard, J.F. (1991) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minnesota University Press. Minneapolis.
Mbiti, J. S. (1990) African Religions and Philosophy, Heinemann, Second Edition, London.
Popper, K. (1979) Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Preston, P. (1996), Development Theory: An Introduction to the Analysis of Complex Change, Wiley-Blackwell.
Winner, L. (1977 Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Wiredu, K. (1992) ‘Formulating Modern Thought in African Languages: Some Theoretical Considerations’ in Mudimbe, V. Y. (Eds.), The Surreptitious Speech, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 301-302.

KM, Emerging Technologies and Innovative Schemes

Community-driven development for water and sanitation in urban areas

carol — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 03:38:10 -0600

Authors: D. Satterthwaite; G. McGranahan; D. Mitlin
Publisher: Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council , 2005

This booklet presents a number of community-led initiatives to improve and extend provision for water and sanitation to low-income urban households and discusses their relevance for meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG)
target for water and sanitation.At the core of most initiatives described in this booklet is the possibility for urban poor groups and their organizations to influence what is done and to be involved in doing it. An analysis of these initiatives demonstrates that:

a great number of development projects are designed and implemented by professionals which permit urban poor groups no influence and which rarely produce the hoped for improvements in water and sanitation
the community-driven examples given in this booklet usually have much lower unit costs than professionally driven approaches and require much less external finance, also they are usually far more successful at ensuring benefits
reach the poorest groups
any professionals object to community-driven projects because their own role and importance is diminished - and because their professional training did not equip them to know how to work with urban poor groups and to support their initiatives
almost all the official development assistance agencies find it difficult to support community-driven development because their structures and procedures were never designed to do so
most of the discussion on how to meet the MDGs is about national and international changes, but it is largely local governments that will determine whether most of the MDGs and their associated targets are met in urban areas - including those relating to water and sanitation
much emphasis is placed within the MDGs on the need for better monitoring of progress towards the targets. For water and sanitation provision, the emphasis is on more accurate and detailed national sample surveys. Yet while these surveys
may serve global and national monitoring they do not identify where inadequacies in provision actually are and who suffers from them
more attention should be given to the role of local 'non-profit' organisations supplying water and sanitation services that work within market frameworks either within systems managed by private water utilities or as 'private water utilities' themselves.

This study was commissioned by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) as an input to the 13th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, April 2005, New York. It is the result of a collaboration between the
WSSCC and the Human Settlements Programme at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

http://www.wsscc.org/pdf/publication/Community_driven_development.pdf

Information Provided by Carol Lombard, Department of Social Development Population Website

KM & Social Challenges

Implementing the social vision of an egalitarian society: intellectual capital and the production of social policy analysts

KMAadmin — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:49:52 -0600

Corresponding author: Dr Lulama Makhubela - Intellectual Capital, Development Bank of Southern Africa, 1258 Lever Road, Headway Hill, Midrand; lulum@dbsa.org
Dr Robert Van Niekerk Centre for the Analysis of South African Social Policy, Oxford University, UK; Robert.vanniekerk@socres.ox.ac.uk

Abstract
This paper offers an analysis of intellectual capital as “intellectual action” in the social sphere, or the application of knowledge for social purposes. It is specifically concerned with the production of social policy analysts who can implement the social vision of an egalitarian society in the African context. The paper uses the case of South Africa to raise questions about knowledge-production and social policy. The paper begins by discussing the existing intellectual capital which has informed the creation of a social vision of an egalitararian South African society. These include foundational documents such as African Claims (1943), the Freedom Charter (1955), the RDP base document (1994) and the Constitution (1996). These foundational documents suggest a particular relationship between economic and social policy – that social policy should not be subsumed into economic policy and thus undermine the achievement of social goals such as inequality and poverty reduction. There has though not been sufficient attention paid to the production of social policy analysts which can give effect to the social vision – either through directly informing policy or reflecting on current knowledge and its production in the social sphere – and the degree to which such knowledge informs the implementation of the social vision of an egalitarian society. Crucial to the production of such social policy analysts is the institutional context within which knowledge is produced (such as universities from a disadvantaged as opposed to a privileged background) and the race, gender and class characteristics of the knowledge producers. We argue that engaging issues of representivity is important for not only issues of redress but to also ensure that a diverse range of voices are heard and can contribute to implementing the social vision. This will require concerted and intentional action. The paper outlines strategies to its achievement – including the development of social policy analysts skilled in meta-analysis who can evaluate existing knowledge in the social sphere, and the degree to which it informs the implementation of a social vision of an egalitarian society with due consideration to concerns of race, gender and class diversity. The paper concludes by considering some practical recommendations for producing the desired social policy analysts, based on the South African case of social policy and knowledge production.

Introduction

The paper offers an analysis of intellectual capital as “intellectual action” in the social sphere, or the application of knowledge for social purposes. It is specifically concerned with the production of social policy analysts who can implement the social vision of an egalitarian society in the African context. The paper uses the case of South Africa to raise questions about knowledge-production and social policy. It begins by discussing the existing intellectual capital that has informed the creation of a social vision of an egalitararian South African society. These include foundational documents such as African Claims (1943), the Freedom Charter (1955), the RDP base document (1994) and the Constitution (1996). These foundational documents suggest a particular relationship between economic and social policy – that social policy should not be subsumed into economic policy and thus undermine the achievement of social goals such as inequality and poverty reduction. There has though not been sufficient attention paid to the production of social policy analysts which can give effect to the social vision – either through directly informing policy or reflecting on current knowledge and its production in the social sphere – and the degree to which such knowledge informs the implementation of the social vision of an egalitarian society. Crucial to the production of such social policy analysts is the institutional context within which knowledge is produced (such as universities from a disadvantaged as opposed to a privileged background) and the race, gender and class characteristics of the knowledge producers. We argue that engaging issues of representivity is important for not only issues of redress but to also ensure that a diverse range of voices are heard and can contribute to implementing the social vision. This will require concerted and intentional action. The paper outlines strategies to its achievement – including the development of social policy analysts skilled in meta-analysis who can evaluate existing knowledge in the social sphere, and the degree to which it informs the implementation of a social vision of an egalitarian society with due consideration to concerns of race, gender and class diversity. The paper concludes by considering some practical recommendations for producing the desired social policy analysts, based on the South African case of social policy and knowledge production.

Implementing the social vision of an egalitarian society: intellectual capital and the production of social policy analysts

Recent evidence suggests that Africa is at development cross-roads. A report of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Africa Steering Group reported that achieving the Millennium Development Goals held “the promise of saving millions of lives; empowering women; addressing the scourge of illiteracy, hunger and malnutrition; and ensuring that Africa’s children have access to high-quality education and good health to lead productive lives” (MDG, 2008: 1). In achieving these significant development goals the MDG Steering Group reported however that the “continent as a whole is lagging behind on each Goal despite a very encouraging rise in the rate of economic growth, an overall improvement in the policy environment and strong macro-economic fundamentals” (MDG, 2008:1) The report of the MDG Steering Group suggests that successful economic development has not translated into improved social development, at least to the degree desired. The question that this paper aims to address is the relationship between social policy and economic policy and the production of capacity for social policy analytic decision-making which can advance the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In explaining the relationship between social policy and economic policy it draws on the seminal work of Mkandiwire (2004) and Adesina (2008) on the need for a “transformative social policy” that engages with problems of economic development while preventing the traditional subsuming of social policy to economic development. The paper uses the case of South Africa to examine historical inequities and deficiencies in knowledge-production that have prevented the development of social policy analysts who have the necessary skills to address the new knowledge challenges of “transformative social policy” and who are demographically representative of the wider society. It examines historical thinking on egalitarian social policy in South Africa and discusses an institutional model of mentorship that can produce the type of social policy analyst with the knowledge creation and management skills necessary for realising this egalitarian and historical vision of an inclusive, transformed society. Some broader lessons for African countries confronting questions of analytic capacity for social policy and development are discussed.

The framework for new knowledge-creation and analytic capacity: re-examing social policy and economic policy in Africa

A myriad of definitions on Intellectual Capital have been advanced leading to different interpretation of the concept – in part because of the problem of how to measure and give value to a qualities that are intangible such as the tacit knowledge which is embedded in an individual and which, unlike explicit knowledge, becomes difficult to codify . In the literature on intellectual capital and policy making the original definition of Galbraith provides however a provocative insight on the purposive, social intent of knowledge-creation. Galbraith argued that intellectual capital was more than “pure” intellect but included “intellectual action, a progression from possessing knowledge to applying it and which implied relationships and processes which are needed to transform knowledge into value (Swart, 2006). Mkandiwire’s (2004) observations on the history of the relationship between social and economic policy in recent African development and the need for a “transformative social policy” represents an intellectual action with far reaching implications for African development policy and actions to achieve development goals. Recently reviewing the history of the relationship between economic and social policy he argues that social policy has been relegated to a “social safety” net for those who cannot participate or benefit from the proceeds of economic development (Mkandiwire, 2004). In this context social expenditure is seen as a drain on fiscal resources that should be supporting economic development. The consequences of this policy approach translated into action are the structural adjustment programmes which wreaked havoc with African development for two decades (Adesina, 2008). A re-balancing of the relationship between economic and social policy is now required – one where “social policy should be conceived as involving overall and prior concerns with social development, and as a key instrument that works in tandem with economic policy to ensure equitable and socially sustainable development. Social policy must be designed not only residually, to cater for social casualties, but also integrated as a central component of policies, to ensure the wherewithal for their sustainability (Mkandiwire, 2004: 3-4). The question which emerges is how are these insights on the need for a transformative social policy to be applied so that it influences social policy debates and their outcomes? Who will the agents of this new intellectual capital and how are they to be produced?

South Africa: The context of social policy fifteen years into the post-1994 democracy

Since 1994 South Africa has recorded significant outcomes from many of its social policies aimed at overcoming the deeply rooted legacies of apartheid and colonialism. Government figures1 on access to basic services indicate for example that households’ access to water increased from 62 percent in 1996 to 88 percent in 2007. In the same period access to sanitation increased from 52 percent to 73 percent. These indicators of successfully implemented social policies need to be set however against the difficulties of many social policies to achieve their inclusive and poverty alleviating intentions. In the area of housing the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, while commending the legal provisions in the constitution that guaranteed the right to adequate housing nonetheless reported that despite the socio-economic right to adequate housing, evictions are a “regular occurrence” with 2 million people displaced since 1994” (United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, 2008: 2). According to the Children’s Institute of the University of Cape Town ten million children continued to live in households earning less than R800 per month, considered an ultra-poverty or “indigent” poverty line (Children’s Institute, 2006).

At the level of policy these social indicators demonstrate a rapidly growing need in South Africa for social policy analysts with the analytic and conceptual skills to evaluate and monitor the progress and implementation of the government’s social policy reforms. Indeed the importance of such skills has been recognised by the government itself, with the Minister of Social Development, Dr Zola Skweyiya, of the ruling African National Congress government commented that “social policy is at the very centre of the vision of the type of society we want to build. Social policy is a way of thinking about the interventions and solutions for the many social and economic problems we face… We must find solutions to the malnutrition, the infant mortality, improve our education and health systems and make sure that our social and economic policy leads to real and positive outcomes for the millions of our children and young people” (Skweyiya, 2008). Dr Skweyiya’s comments are consistent with a history of thinking within the ANC on social policy and its utility as an agent for social transformation.

In 1943 the ANC produced “African Claims”, a document which set out a range of social policies based on the social rights concomitant with political enfranchisement. These rights, contained in a Bill of Rights, included the establishment of free medical and health services for all sections of the population; the right of every child to free and compulsory education and of admission to technical schools, universities and other institutions of higher education and equality of treatment with any other section of the population in the State social services, and the inclusion on an equal basis … in any scheme of social security and the extension of all industrial welfare legislation to Africans engaged in Agriculture, Domestic Service and in Public institutions or bodies (African Claims, quoted in Karis and Carter, 1987, 217 – 222).

In 1955 the Freedom Charter, the ANC’s historical programme for transforming South Africa, was adopted. The Charter contained a series of ‘demands’ framed by the primary citizenship demand that the ‘People Shall Govern’. In addition to civil and political rights, it (like Africans’ Claims before it) contained demands for social rights, including rights related to income maintenance, state-provided free and universal education, rights to housing and rights to free, state-provided medical care (Freedom Charter, quoted in Karis and Carter, 1987).

The other significant milestones in ANC thinking on social policy were the Reconstruction and Development Programmes (RDP) base document of 1994 and finally the Constitution adopted in 1996. The RDP set out as its five key policy programmes to achieve its objectives, ‘the meeting of basic needs, developing … human resources, building the economy, democratising the state and society and implementing the RDP (RDP, 1994: 7). The RDP located an interventionist role for the government in the economy. It further argued for a strong role for public sector investment, including nationalization as an option to achieve an expanded public sector (RDP, 1994: 80). With regard to health care policy, the RDP advocated a National Health Service based on the “complete transformation of the entire delivery system” (RDP, 1994: 13). The imperative of transformation was also reflected in its education proposals, which called for national, integrated system of education that met development needs. The RDP base document was principally concerned with building the human resources that would allow African citizens to have expanded life chances in the post-apartheid era, including opportunities in the labour market which had been racially differentiated. The radical, re-distributive impetus in the pre-election social policy proposals of the ANC reflected an intention to break with the racialised social policies of the apartheid era. These social policy proposals of the RDP base document, based on an ethic of social justice and acknowledgment of constitutionally guaranteed social rights were ideologically compatible with a social democratic approach to social policy and reflected a continuity with thinking since the 1940’s on the need for an interventionist state that prioritised social policy based on social rights of citizenship whilst simultaneously meeting imperatives of economic development. These imperatives were concretized in the Constitution of South Africa adopted in 1996, which guaranteed entitlements to socio-economic rights such as health, housing and education within available government resources.

This review reveals that the idea of a “transformative social policy” that locates social policy as central outcome and not subordinate to the objectives of economic development, as deeply embedded in the policy discourses of the ruling ANC. The problem has been how to successfully translate these intentions into practice, reflected in the uneven social indicators of development progress fifteen years into democratic rule.

Social Policy analysts, knowledge creation and the system of higher education

A key mechanism for ensuring that transformative social policy informs policy debates on development and as well as the discourse of development is through the training of future social policy analysts. In the medium-to-long-term it is essential that local academic and research institutions in particular are able to provide for the training of future social policy analysts who can independently undertake rigorous, critically informed research in the tradition of transformative social policy. Moreover, it is important that the education and training of such social policy analysts simultaneously redresses educational inequality in the system of higher education, in particular the educational privileging of a minority white elite historically through a racialised system of schooling and higher education. In the context of the constitutional imperative to promote equality through “legislative and other measures designed to protect or advance persons, or categories of persons, disadvantaged by unfair discrimination” it is necessary for African social policy analysts to be purposefully produced and who are demographically representative of the wider South African society most effected by poverty and inequality. This includes purposive action to educate and develop more African women social policy analysts and those from the working class. The concern that requires to be addressed here is that the imperative for deracialisation of political institutions in South African society needs to also extend to the de-racialisation of the production of knowledge and related processes of policy decision making, including social policy. The constitutional imperatives of equality require more-over that the government should play an active and not passive role in ensuring that targets for the production of social policy analysts are met. The government should establish an independent body that can review progress on transforming the academic culture at an institutional level. This body must ensure that there are no institutional obstacles to African academics playing the fundamental role in intellectual leadership of their institutions. This will ensure the longer term sustainability of education and training programmes aimed to develop a new cadre of social policy analysts as conceived in the discussion above.

Obstacles to the production of African social policy analysts

There are a number of obstacles that mitigates against production of African social policy analysts. Amongst the key obstacles which need to be considered are:

the institutional capacity in the South African higher education system to provide education and training in social policy;
the institutional culture in academia and its ability to nurture a new generation of African academics who can lead on the development of social policy as an area of academic study; and
the potential constraints on African students in the social sciences undertaking a career path as social policy analysts in contrast to other competing career trajectories.

The three obstacles are further discussed below:

Educational capacity in the higher education system. Internationally social policy is studied in academic departments as one of the areas in the academic social sciences with a distinct empirical focus on the support for the well-being of citizens provided through social action. This distinguishes the study of social policy from other areas of social sciences such as Sociology, Development Studies, Economics and Political Science (Alcock, 2003)... South Africa has a long academic tradition of study in Sociology, Political Science and Economics, all of which have contributed to the analysis and critique of social problems in the apartheid and post-apartheid era. A review of social policy in academia in South Africa reported however that due to historical reasons there does not exist an established tradition of studying social policy as a separate academic discipline (CASASP, 2005). The apartheid regime discouraged the development of such a tradition by making it difficult to routinely collect centralised data and thus enable meaningful comparison of social indicators across race, class and apartheid geographical boundaries. In the post-apartheid era concerns with delivery during the transition led to a focus on developing practitioners who could implement government policy. While this was undoubtedly necessary, it was at the expense of developing evidence-based analysts who could critically reflect on why social policies were successfully implemented or not. The study further observed that the study of social policy was conflated with development studies, a different academic discipline, and that content on three areas critical to social policy was not provided in the curriculum. These related to content on welfare regimes, and the location of South Africa in such a theoretical framework; content on citizenship both from an historical and comparative international perspective, incorporating comparable middle-income developing countries and thirdly the comparative theorisation and conceptualisation of poverty and social exclusion from an international social policy perspective (CASASP, 2005).
The institutional culture in academia and its ability to enable African academics to take a leading role in the academic development of social policy. The education and training of future social policy analysts will be dependent on those academics that can provide appropriate education and training in social policy. The institutional culture in academia is arguably pivotal to developing a cohort of such skilled social policy academics who can take the lead in developing social policy as an academic area of study. The current institutional culture in South African higher education arguably undermines this development however, a consequence of the persistent racial inequalities in the composition of the academic workforce. If social policy is to take root and flourish as a relevant paradigm and subject of academic study it will need to be embedded in the new generation of academics who can research and teach social policy to future generations of students interested in becoming social policy analysts. Furthermore if the constitutional imperative of equity in higher education is to be realised, meaning substantively that the majority of future academics will be African in a manner consonant with the demographic profile of the country, then African academics will need to lead and staff future programmes and departments of social policy in higher education institutions. The evidence of continuing inequality in higher education suggests real concern however for the ability of the higher education system to develop such a cohort of African social policy academics who can be the bedrock of a distinctive South African tradition of social policy. As revealed in a recent study whilst African South Africans comprise nearly 91 percent of the population they make up only 38 percent of academics. The position is particularly stark in the case of African Africans who comprise 80 percent of the population but comprise only 24 percent of the academic workforce. Women who comprise 51 percent of the population comprise only 42 percent of academics (Badat, 2008). The fact that knowledge production is thus still “predominately the preserve of white men” (Badat, 2008) radically inhibits the possibilities for African academics taking academic leadership roles at departmental level. The possibilities for a social policy academic tradition to emerge which is rooted in a new generation of academics demographically and substantively reflective of the ideals of a post-apartheid society are thus diminished. The possible exception to this trend is the historically disadvantaged academic institutions (HDI’s). The HDI’s have an academic culture that does encourage the development of African academics into leadership positions. They are also significant for their location in provinces which experienced the worst forms of poverty and inequality and are thus ideally located to develop a cadre of social policy academics (and students) who can address social policy concerns at a provincial level. Compared to the historically white universities the HDI’s however are constrained by comparative lack of financial and human resources to develop new, innovative teaching and research programmes. The academics in HDI’s also have greater teaching commitments due to their comparatively higher intakes of students with a much smaller academic staff complement compared to historically white institutions. This diminishes the ability of many academics in historically disadvantaged institutions to undertake high quality research, a necessary ingredient for developing social policy as an academic area of study. Addressing these fundamental institutional, financial and human resource concerns will thus be necessary if African social policy academics are to be produced who can lead the development of social policy as an area of study and the production of a future generation of social policy analysts.
Potential constraints on African students undertaking careers as social policy analysts As argued in the previous sub-section the future education and training of social policy analysts will be significantly dependent on African academics who are enabled to undertake rigorous teaching and research in social policy and who can lead the institutionalisation of social policy as an academic discipline in higher education institutions. Constraints on African students pursuing careers as social policy analysts need to be considered however. With regard to student enrolment on courses a study by Breier and Mabizela (2008: 285) suggests that national targets for headcount enrolments in the social sciences are being broadly met, with 41 percent of target reached against national target of 40 percent in 2004. The concern is less enrolment than the sustaining of such students in education programmes for the duration of their studies. Evidence based on Department of Education sources suggest that 50 percent of first time undergraduates dropped out before attaining a qualification. Reasons cited include poverty and the insufficiency of bursaries and loans to cover fees (Breier and Mabizela (2008: 290)
There is a further set of factors that potentially constrain students taking up studies in social policy that will lead to them becoming social policy analysts. The remuneration for a career trajectory as a social policy analyst may be significantly less than options of employment in the private sector. For African students from working class and rural poor backgrounds, often with families to support, this can become a significant opportunity cost. The other consideration is career pathways and prospects for career development. If there is not a clear pathway for entry into a professional career as a social policy analyst for students on graduating, either in government or the non-government sector, then the incentive to become social policy analysts diminish.

Preferred policy alternatives to address obstacles in the development of African social policy analysts.

The first key goal for addressing the obstacles identified above is to enhance the institutional capacity to deliver social policy teaching and research programmes through redressing inequalities in knowledge production. This can be achieved through a comprehensive mentorship scheme aimed at supporting African academics to enable them to lead the development of social policy as an academic discipline in their institutions. The mentorship scheme should be an institutional model – meaning that it will not only aim to re-dress inequalities of access of African academics to high level expertise in social policy but simultaneously enable individual departments to enhance and build their capacity in social policy teaching and research. The mentorship scheme will thus be dependent in particular for its success on full institutional support from the relevant academic department in which the candidate academic is employed. Without such institutional support the candidate academic on the mentorship programme will be unable to meet their assigned mentorship tasks and obligations. The mentorship programme will pair a local academic with an established international social policy academic who will confer their social policy analytic skills through an intensive social policy educational programme. This is intended to create a foundation for developing a programme of social policy teaching in the academic institution and which can be lead by the candidate academic on the mentorship programme.

The second key goal for addressing the obstacles identified above will be to create incentives for committed African students to enrol and sustain their participation in social policy education programmes. This can be achieved through the provision of adequate financial and pastoral support to ensure completion of the course. Support will be contingent on good quality results and supervisor reports. In addition a career entry into the civil service as a social policy analyst will be negotiated – commencing for a probationary period but which can then be made permanent on the successful completion of the probationary period.

Measurement of policy success

In regards to the mentorship scheme aimed at developing African academics in social policy the successful completion of 90 percent of the mentorees in the programme over the five year period will be the measure of success.

In regards to the African students enrolled in courses of social policy the successful completion by 90 percent of the selected students in the course and their entry and completion after the probationary period of employment into the civil service will be the measure of policy success.

The DBSA in the social vision of an egalitarian society: implementation modalities

Unlike commercial banks, the DBSA, has an additionality function of being a knowledge institution. This is occasioned by the fact that matters of development are not events but processes that go beyond initial transactions between the bank and its client. Further, and more important, the success of a development bank cannot be measured on the basis of its transactional or financial outputs, but on the impact of those outputs in the development agenda of a country, a region, a continent or the world itself.

For this reason, the DBSA has to have a reservoir of capacities (including human), processes, structures, platforms and networks within which it stores masses of knowledge that could be used to increase its outputs and more especially to assure its impact.

Intellectual Capital has been put to the forefront of an enterprise-wide activity in the DBSA, strategically linked to the Bank’s value position. As a key asset of the Bank, intellectual capital and the management thereof, must add value to the Bank’s core business and enable the Bank to be responsive to environmental changes and challenges, enhance its efficiency as a financial institution, and be a leading expert and change agent. The DBSA, as a Development Bank, must galvanise the most pertinent elements of the acquired knowledge to find solutions to development challenges in order to contribute to an improved quality of life, especially for the poor and marginalized within our nation and the broader region.

Poverty alleviation, narrowing of stark wealth inequalities, unemployment reduction, environmental sustainability, and countering the HIV AIDS scourge are only some of the key and pervasive development problems that both South Africa and the region are faced with. It is widely acknowledged that any attempts to resolve development challenges will be time-consuming; and similarly research, as a systemic enquiry to render value-adding and usable outcomes, especially to address the development challenges that besiege us, needs to be undertaken with a far-sighted approach. This in turn will lead to the requisite knowledge base that can adequately feed into insightful and innovative development solutions for local and regional applicability. Accordingly, the DBSA has devised the 2014 vision that is aligned to the Millennium Development Goals and that recognises delivery of relevant knowledge products that can contribute significantly to the improvement of the quality of life of people in the region.

The intellectual Capital Agenda seeks to align with the Bank’s position that the “DBSA is not just a money bank, it is a development bank” and the associated view that places people at the very centre of every development activity or intervention2, in an attempt to improve the quality of life and living conditions of ordinary citizens. This markedly informs the approach to development measurement which will incorporate elements of both economic-based assessments and equally importantly, social development.

The above foregrounds the DBSA Intellectual Capital function as centrally poised to facilitate the development of socially policy analyctic capacity through the research capacity development programme. The details of the programme are not given here, suffice to say that the basic tenets of such a programme acknowledges the critical skills shortage in both social and economic meta-analysis.

The Development Bank of Southern Africa and implementation modalities

The key founding principle of the Knowledge Management Africa biennial conferences was the recognition on the urgent need for the creation of endogenous knowledge solutions for the development agenda of Africa. The DBSA has been in the forefront of pushing this agenda through its articulation of its knowledge management programme. The third KMA conference therefore builds on the development gains achieved thus far but also identify gaps in sustainable development that hamper greater progress in Africa.

A huge gap exists in implementing the social vision of an egalitarian society, the intellectual capital and the production of social policy analysts within the South African university system as articulated in the paper. The Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), in executing its additionality function, should make funds available on a tender basis for developing targeted knowledge areas in the departments of academic institutions. One such targeted knowledge area is the development of social policy analysis grounded in the paradigm of transformative social policy and skilled in meta-analysis and systematic reviews. The production of skills in meta-nalysis and systematic reviews will allow for a policy engagement that assesses the strengths and shortfalls in current social policy in realizing the egalitarian vision of a transformative social policy. Such skills allow for an evidence-based assessment based on clearly defined criteria of knowledge short –falls in social policy. This is an underdeveloped knowledge function – an overdue focus on the production of “new” policy knowledge has left unattended a systematic assessment of the quality of the knowledge and the degree to which it provides insights and pathways to realizing the goals of transformative social policy.

The DBSA tender would specify the knowledge area requirements and the criteria for tender assessment would include the number of African graduates in social policy analysts produced who demonstrate the desired knowledge and skills. The criteria would also include the degree of participation of African academics at departmental level in the education and training of social policy analysts – or plans to equip African academics to perform a leadership role in such training which would include mentorship schemes for such academics. The agreement would be with the individual department and with commitments undersigned by the university. The will ensure that the production of future post-graduate analysts and the development of academics equipped in social policy analysis occurs simultaneously. With regard to the monitoring function the governments Department of Education should perform an active role in evaluating progress in achieving agreed upon goals with an independent assessment of changes to the institutional culture in which such goals are delivered upon. This will ensure the production of African social policy analysts is sustainable and is based on a model of African intellectual leadership with clear steps to its achievement where this is absent. The Department of Social Development, which has a significant amount to gain from such social policy analysts, should create career pathways for incoming graduates, to be integrated into the social policy knowledge-creation and evaluation functions of the Department. This model is reproducible into other African contexts – albeit without the particularly racialised specificities of the South African case – and a regional clearing house should be created that allows participation of the SADC countries in this initiative.

Conclusion

The paper has discussed the context of knowledge production and social policy in South Africa. The need for social policy analysts skilled in the paradigm of “transformative social policy” who can ensure implementation of the historical vision of an egalitarian society will require a fundamental transformation of the institutional culture of academic institutions. This transformation should be achieved through a combination of incentives and monitoring of academic institutions undertaking academic activities in social policy.

A set of concrete recommendations to the DBSA and other key role players e.g. lead universities such as Rhodes and Fort Hare in South Africa & others in the SADC region for instance, and key government departments e.g DSD and DOE in implementing the social vision of an egalitarian society, the intellectual capital and the production of social policy analysts within the broader KMA project still needs to be problematised further.

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KM & Governance

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

storytelling — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:32:34 -0600

On 6th September 2000, 189 heads of states and governments met at the United Nations in New York to reaffirm their faith in the Organization and its Charter as indispensable foundations of a more peaceful, prosperous and just world. The 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) were adopted at the meeting. These 8 goals are seen as key to to freeing some of the world's poorest people from the dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty.

Millennium Development Goals:

1 - Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than one U.S. dollar a day.
Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

2 - Achieve universal primary education

Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling. Increased enrollment must be accompanied by efforts to ensure that all children remain in school and receive a high-quality education

3 - Promote gender equality and empower women

Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.

4 - Reduce child mortality

Reduce the mortality rate among children under five by two thirds.

5 - Improve maternal health

Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.

6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.

7 - Ensure environmental sustainability

Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources.
Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.

8 - Develop a global partnership for development

Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory. Includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction—nationally and internationally.
Address the least developed countries’ special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.
Deal comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term.
In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth.
In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.
In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies - especially information and communications technologies.

The MDG's were introduced as part of a wider attempt to encourage the international community to stop talking about making a difference in the developing world and join forces to start doing something about it. The Millennium Development Goals have a crucial part to play in reducing poverty and encouraging progress in the developing world. As a result, NEPAD, COMESA, IFPMA, UNECA, and the African Development Bank have all come together in analysing the progress and discussing a way forward.

See MDG Review for further details.