The parameters of science and technology policy formulation in South Africa

African Development Review

Volumn 10, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 73-89

  Scerri, Mario ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

INDUSTRIAL POLICY; POLICY MAKING; SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; TECHNOLOGY POLICY;

SOUTH AFRICA;

EID: 0031854037     PISSN: 10176772     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8268.1998.tb00097.x     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. We have in place an ailing national system of innovation. It is fragmented and is neither co-ordinated within itself nor within national goals; innovation capacity is not being built but is being eroded; national investment in R&D is not increasing relative to GDP, but falling. (DACST, 1996:46).
2. See Scerri (1990, 1995).
3. See Nelson (1993).
4. See the Report of the Proceedings of the Industries Advisory Board and of the Scientific and Technical Committee for the nine months ending 31st December, 1917. (U.G. 21-'18: 30-31).
5. See the Report of the Proceedings of the Industries Advisory Board and of the Scientific and Technical Committee for the period 1st January to 30th September, 1918 and of the Advisory Board of Industry and Science for the Quarter ended 31st December, 1918. (U.G. 33-'19: 5), for the official statement of the change in policy.
6. See Jacobs (1948).
7. The IDC was established in 1940 as the facilitating agency for industrial development and provided aid on the technical level, as well as managerial and financial aid, to industry. The launch of the IDC was pivotal in respect to the development of the institutional base for the country's technology base. Its terms of reference provided for a project appraisal procedure which assessed proposals within the context of long term viability and van der Bijl was adamant that criteria of long term viability would be applied in all project appraisals (see Jacobs, 1948:130).
8. Report of the Advisory Board of Industry and Science for the year 1919. Cape Town, 1920. (U.G. 43-'20:13)
9. ibid: 13.
10. Quoted from Meier (1970:393).
11. The report of the Bantu Education Commission of 1951 proposed a separate educational system for blacks, controlled by central government (rather than by provincial government and missions) with syllabi which relied on colloquial languages and on manual training. Separate education along racial lines along the recommendations of this report were made law through the 1953 Bantu Education Act. Racial separation was imposed in tertiary education by the 1957 Extension of University Education Act.
12. House of Assembly Debates, 1945, col. 7396-7398.
13. During the period 1948-1959 the following were established: 1948 Scheme for medical research units. 1949 Sugar Milling Research Institute 1950 Scientific Council for Africa South of the Sahara. South African Wool Textile Research Institute. Bitumons Binder Research Unit. 1954 National Nutrition Research Institute. 1955 National Institute for Road Research. National Mechanical Engineering Research Institute. 1957 Scientific Liaison Office (Cologne). 1958 National Institute for Water Research. (Kingwill, 1990: 292-294).
14. Reikert 1979 commission, Wiehahn 1982 commission, J. de Wet's 1983 recommendations, Kleu 1983 report, White Paper on Industrial Strategy, 1985
15. The foremost among these, following the de Wet (1983) report was to combine the Main Research Support Programme and the Co-operative Scientific Programmes under a new institution, which was to be attached to the CSIR, in 1984. This was the Federation for Research Development. This institution eventually became independent of the CSIR in 1990. The Kleu (1983) report emphasised the need to shift the bias of the public sector research effort towards programmes which were more applied to perceived national requirements. The White Paper on Industrial Development Policy (1983) charged the CSIR specifically with the role of enabling technology diffusion throughout the economy.
16. The other institutions which achieved this type of independence under framework autonomy were the Human Sciences Research Council, the Federation for Research Development, the Council for Mineral Technology, the South African Bureau of Standards, the Medical Research Council, the Agricultural Research Council and the Council for Geosciences.
17. The funds devoted to direct industrial decentralization incentives alone currently swallow about one-half of the budget of the Department of Industry and Commerce. If other budgetary allocations to decentralization are included, such as those allocated to the financing of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and other funds devoted to infrastructural development that makes the programme possible, decentralization takes a large bite out of the South African government's budget. (Hirsch, 1991: 145)
18. Individual institutions trying to adapt are doing so in a policy vacuum at the highest levels of the present South African government. It may be that in the past, during the days of the National Party government's "Total Strategy", there was strong coordination and shared purpose among the institutions of the white dominated state. If that was the case then, we found no evidence of it being the case now. Rather, we saw a series of institutions, each trying to define for itself a role in a "new" South Africa ... (IDRC, 1993: 5) There are no articulated economic or social goals towards which various institutions could apply their efforts. ... as a consequence of the policy vacuum, resource allocations are essentially frozen, subject only to minor variations approved by officials within a system which is non-consultative and non-transparent, even to other high-level government officials. (IDRC, 1993: 22-23, emphasis added)
19. The economic policy agenda of the government, drawn prior to the 1994 election was the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and this was formalised in the RDP White Paper (September, 1994). A draft National Growth and Development Strategy document was presented in February, 1996, departing substantially from the Keynesian paradigm on which the RDP had been based. In June, 1996 the shift in economic policy was specified in the Growth, Equality and Redistribution: a Macroeconomic Strategy (GEAR) document.
20. Section five of the Document (GEAR), on 'Trade, Industrial and Small Enterprise Policies', is thin on what the proposed trade policies, industrial policy and small enterprises are to be. On trade, the proposals appear to do away with any policies, as fast as possible. Some small enterprise policies are listed and there is a complete absence of any proposal for an industrial policy or strategy. (NIEP, 1996: 13, parenthesis added).
21. The institutional map governing S&T policy formulation and implementation sees the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST), within the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology, as the government's coordinating agent for the design and promotion of the required national innovation system. Proper coordination of S&T policy across the broad spectrum of the public service will be entrusted to the Ministers Committee on Science and Technology which will comprise all those Ministers whose portfolios contain a significant S&T component. The National Advisory Council on Innovation, a council of experts from diverse fields and sectors, representing various stakeholder bodies, will act as an advisory body for DACST.
22. Basson, N. 1996. Passage to Progress: The CSIR's Journey of Change 1945-1995. (Johannesburg: Johnatan Ball Publishers).
23. Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST). 1966. White Paper on Science and Technology: Preparing for the 21st Century. (Pretoria).
24. IDRC (International Development Research Centre). 1993. Towards a Science and Technology Policy for a Democratic South Africa: A Report to the ANC, COSATU and SANCO (South Africa).
25. Hirsch, A. 1991. "Industrial Decentralization and the Spatial Economy of Apartheid", in Konczacki et al. (eds.), op. cit.
26. Jacobs, A. 1948. South African Heritage: A Biography of H.J. van der Bijl. (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter and Shooter).
27. Kingwill, D.G. 1990. The CSIR - The First 40 Years. (Pretoria: CSIR).
28. Konczacki, Z.A., Parpart, J.L. and Shaw, T.M. (eds.) 1991. Studies in the Economic History of Southern Africa, Vol II: South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. (U.K.: Frank Cass &Co. Ltd.)
29. Lall, S. 1993. "What Will Make South Africa Internationally Competitive?", paper delivered at the ASPEN/IDASA Conference on South Africa's International Economic Relations in the 1990's.
30. Meier, G.M. 1970. Leading Issues in Economic Development: Studies in International Poverty. (Oxford University Press).
31. Nelson, R.R. 1993. National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis. (New York: Oxford University Press).
32. National Institute for Economic Policy (NIEP). 1996. From RDP to GEAR: The Gradual Embracing of Neo-Liberalism in Economic Policy. (Johannesburg: NIEP).
33. Scerri, M. 1990. "R&D and the International Competitiveness of the South African Manufacturing Sector.", South African Journal of Economics, 58: 341-356.