undp-doc_e-skills_workshop

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Table of Contents

I. Foreword

II. Acknowledgements

Ill. Acronyms

lV. Introduction

V. Objectives & envisage outcomes

VI. Approach and Methodology

VII. 1st part: Introduction to the e-skills Programme

Vlll. 2nd part: Deliberation of the workshop (panel discussions)

a. Key drivers identified for e-skilling South Africa

lX. 3rd part: Deliberation of the Roundtables

a. Identified Outcomes and opportunities

X. Implications and recommendations for the way forward

XI. Appendices

a. Presentation by the Deputy Minister, Mr. Obed Bapela

b. Presentation by the Director General, Mrs. Rosey Sekese

c. Presentation by the UNDP Resident Representaive, Dr. Agostinho Zacarias

d. Presentation by the e-Skills Institute, Mrs. Mymoena Sharif

e. Presentation by UNCTAD, Mrs. Edna dos Santos

f. Presentation by DGF, Mr. Jethro Buttner

g. Presentation by Telkom, Mrs. Nonku Dlamini

h. Closing Speech by DoC, DR. Harold Wesso

XII. Program of the event

XIll. List of participants

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58


Report of the Global Partners Workshop to address the e-Skills Challenge in South Africa 2011

Held in:The Farm Inn, Pretoria – South Africa

10 & 11 August, 2011

For global development and international agencies, business, academia and civil society organizations

This report has been produced by The United Nations Development Programme

e-Skilling South Africa for Equitable Prosperity and Global Competitiveness: Workshop Report


1e-Skilling South Africa for Equitable Prosperity and Global Competitiveness: Workshop Report


2

Foreword

The UNDP and the South African Department of Communications welcome the opportunity to collaborate in building national e-skills capacity to address South Africa’s strategic plans for equitable prosperity and global competitiveness in the Information Society and Knowledge-based Economies. It almost goes without saying that in the emerging environment which is increasingly dominated by increasingly powerful and mobile ICT devices, the global economy is experiencing one of its most complex and comprehensive challenges in history. South Africa is not excluded from these global pressures which have recently led to record unemployment and economic hardship in both developed and emerging countries. There is little doubt that many nation states with a development agenda have moved quickly to capacitate their people, their governments, their education, and their local business in these new technologies in order to address their major socio-economic challenges.

Unfortunately in this situation South Africa’s comparative preparedness for this new socio-economic climate dominated by modern ICT devices and application has been slipping simply because others are moving faster. The emerging ICT ecosystems are a rare combination of complex and dynamic relationships, where competitors can collaborate to push the envelope of innovation. Unlike traditional industries with well-defined structures and competitors, new systems powerfully enabled by ICT simply don’t behave in that matter. The boundaries are fluid and the equilibrium constantly changes. Stakeholders grow, adapt, specialize and innovate constantly often into very large economies of scale which comfortably operate across many state boundaries, languages and oceans bringing substantial challenges to local business, service delivery and community prosperity.

It is vital that South Africa not only recognizes these emerging trends but immediately acts to ensure that these technologies are embedded into its socio-economic fabric in ways that deliver equitable prosperity and global competitiveness.

This is a significant development challenge because the technological development is pervasive and outside of the control of nation states facing large challenges in equitable prosperity. What is clear is that a well e-skilled society (across Government, Business, Education and Civil Society) is a fundamental to all aspects of socio-economic sustainability. What is also clear is that Governments must lead, Governments must develop new collaborations across business, education, government and civil society including labour: and governments must facilitate the development of new value propositions that can provide sustainable socio-economic interdependence, identity and participation.

In recognizing the importance of these issues the South African Government has established the e-skills Institute to develop a collaborative architecture for multi-stakeholder contributions to addressing to addressing the large e-skills deficit that the country faces. Using a collaborative approach with Business, Government, Education and Civil Society, the e-skills Institute has developed a National e-Skills Plan of Action(NeSPA). A key recommendation of the NeSPA is the development of multi-stakeholder Knowledge Production and Coordination Hubs across the country in association with institutions of higher education and this process has commenced.

The UNDP has recognized that fundamental to providing a sustainable impact in countries facing basic developmental challenges, is the establishment of locally owned and sustainable learning institutions that can bridge the gaps between formal education and the developmental agenda. It further recognizes that a useful approach to achieving this is through a dual approach of working




with governments efforts and emerging learning institutions to maximise the impact of its expertise and networks in this area.

Hence, to achieve the joint goals of the South African Government and the UNDP in developing a sustainable, coordinated and integrated approach to e-skilling South Africa, the e-Skills Institute and the UNDP have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which outlines an agreed approach.

The MoU specifies that the UNDP would assist the e-SI to conduct a workshop that would bring the key stakeholder organisations together to define the basis for collaborative operational and evaluative frameworks between the parties and across their immediate networks and resources. Central to this approach was an agreed desire that the efforts should be situated beyond technological determinism in isolation and be visibly directed towards impact on the South African Medium Term Strategic Plan.

Both parties (the UNDP and the Department of Communications through the e-SI) are commited collectively bringing their skills, networks, expertise and available resources together to develop an innovative, sustainable and proactive approach towards e-skilling South Africa and to developing and testing a model that has application in other countries with a developmental agenda.

This report outlines the process and outputs of the initial workshop held in Johannesburg 9-10 August 2011.

Dr Agostinho ZacariasResident representative UNDPResident coordinator UN South Africa

Ms Rosey Sekese Director GeneralDepartment of Communications


4

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the following persons that made possible the success of the Global Development Partners works

shop:


From the DoC: Dr. Harold Wesso Mrs. Mymoena Sharif Mr. Marius van Niekerk Mr. Wallace Taylor (TISI)

Mr. Marius van Niekerk – DoC Mrs. Busiswa Mlandu - DoC Mrs. Mpho Matiwane – DoC Mrs. Ivy Maluleka – DoC Mr. Gonzalo Aramayo - UNDP Ms. Phumza Manqindi – UNDP Ms. Olivia Atsin – UNDP intern Ms. Nomakhaya Mgcina - UNDP intern Ms. Nwabisa Mayeng - UNDP intern Ms. Nolwazi Mhodi - UNDP Intern Mr. Jacob Modise – UNDP Mrs. Yoliswa Macoba – UNDP

Dr. Towela Nyirenda-Jere - NEPAD Mr. Raul Zambrano - UNDP Mrs. Faye Macheke - ICDL Mr. Bruce Muirhead - EIDOS Mr. Phineas Molele – USAASA Mrs. Edna dos Santos - UNCTAD Mr. Adrian Godfrey – CISCO Mr. Jethro Buttner - DGF Mr. Greg Hearn - QUT Mr. Stephan Ohme – German Embassy Ms. Nonku Dlamini – Telkom Mr. Shureid Brown – Samsung Larry Pokpas - UWC Carina de Villers – UP Cecile Marsh – WSU Colin Thakur – DUT James Theron - VUT Peter Drury – CISCO

From the UNDP: Dr. Agostinho Zacarias Mr. Israel Dessalegne Mr. Khepi Shole Mr. Gonzalo Aramayo Mr. Raul Zambrano


5

Acronyms

BMF’s: Business Monitoring Forums

DGF: Development Gateway Foundation

DHE: Department of Higher Education

DoC: Department of Communication

DTI: Department of Trade and Investment

e-SI: e-skills Institute

FET Colleges: Further Education and Training Colleges

GFC: Global Financial Crisis

IBSG: Internet Business Solutions Group

ICDL: International Computer Driving Licence

ICT: Information and Communication Technology

ILO: International Labour Organisation

IMF: International Monetary Fund

ITU: International Telecommunication Union

MDGs: Millennium Development Goals

MTSF Goals (2009-14): Medium Term Strategic Framework

NEMISA: National Electronic Media of South Africa

NEPAD: The New Partnership for Africa’s Development

NeSPA: National e-Skills Plan of Action

NPO’s: Non Profit Organisations

WHO: World Health Organisation

WSIS: World Summit on the Information Society

QUT: Queensland University of Technology

ResNeS: Research Network for e-Skills

RIM: Research In Motion

SETAs: Skills Education Training Authorities / Sector Education and Training Authorities

UNAIDS: United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

UNCTAD: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

UNDP: United Nations Development Programme

UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

UNIDO: United Nations Industrial Development Organisation

USAASA: Universal Services Agency

UWC: University of Western Cape




Introduction

In the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the Department of Communications (DoC), of the Republic of South Africa and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on April 2011 to support the e-Skills Institute, a flagship programme of the DoC, the UNDP agreed to host a one-day workshop with global developmental agencies to inform and engage the international com-munity, government, business and civil society to outline e-skills development issues, within the con-text of the national e-skills agenda. Furthermore, the workshop was to develop a draft contributory framework for the coordination of support for the e-Skills initiative in a way that allows the international community to contribute effort and resources aligned to their own mandate.

The e-skills workshop was timely in that the e-Skills Institute (e-SI) is implementing the development of the five Provincial e-Skills Knowledge Production and Coordination Hubs; has launched its Research Network for e-Skills (ResNeS); and is consolidating itself at a national level as the lead institution to achieve equitable prosperity and global competitiveness in the Information Society and Knowledge-based Economy.

The South African Department of Communications (DoC) and its e-Skills Institute (e-SI)

The DoC has set itself a target of being “A Global Leader in the Development and use of ICT’s for socio-economic development and the betterment of people’s lives” by helping in building a people-centered inclusive Information Society and Knowledge-based Economy.

A fundamental pillar of its national strategy is the consolidation of the e-Skills Institute (e-SI) as a nation-al catalytic collaborator in e-skilling the nation towards employment readiness; effective e-governance and service delivery; business development; socio-economic development; and, research and innova-tion.

e-Skills forms a fundamental part of building capacity for a creative and innovative workforce; an engaged connected society; and informing an academic infrastructure to meet the challenges of an emerging Information Society and Creative Knowledge-based Economies.

The e-Skills Institute (e-SI) reflects a holistic and developmental approach to e-skills development and ensures the effective participation of Government, Education, Corporate, Civil Society including Labour and Global Development Organizations. Its role is to firstly, develop a coordination platform that syn-ergises e-skills stakeholders’ effort. Namely; Business Government, Education, Civil Society and the in-ternational community and secondly, develop a coordination platform that builds new products and services to improve equitable prosperity and global competitiveness for the South Africa’s Information Society and Knowledge-based Economies.

Definition of e-Skills

e-Skills is broadly defined in the South African context and encompasses the ability of people to use and to create all forms of ICT to improve their life opportunities in their i) personal and educational spaces; ii) work environments; iii) community interactions; and iv) participation in governance process-es, for equitable prosperity and global competitiveness.



Objectives & Envisaged Outcomes of the Workshop

The following desired outcomes were presented in the “Concept Note” for the prepara-tion of the workshop:

South African e-Skills Initiative in a way that allows the international community to contribute effort and resources aligned to their own mandates;

core capacities between government, NGOs, private sector, donor agencies and other stakeholders both nationally and provincially;

e-skills against the MDG’s, the MTSF (2009-14) and the WSIS Plan of Action;

especially to rural areas;

of ICTs in promoting equitable prosperity and global competitiveness;

addressing traditional development and governance issues in a new, innovative fashion;

South Africa.

Approach and Methodology

A platform to ensure open communication was considered crucial to fully utilize the di-versity and experience of the participants. The workshop allowed the creation of an “open space” setting in which (1) all of the issues that were most important to the participants were raised and addressed and (2) the most important ideas, discussion, data, recom-mendations, conclusions, questions, and plans for immediate action were documented.

Three themed panel discussions were held in plenary and followed a scheduled agenda of presentations with 5-6 minutes each under the direction of a panel leader. Following all panel presentations the panel chair stimulated debate and discussion amongst panel-ists and participants about the understandings, thematic linkages, policy response and the role of institutions.

Facilitated round-table workshop sessions followed each discussion panel plenary ses-sion. The current facilitators of the e-SI’s provincial e-Skills Knowledge Production and Coordination Hubs played a central role in these working groups which functioned as “peer assist groups” helping the participants to consider projects or activities around the National e-Skills Plan of Action (NeSPA) and linking them to national strategic goals and outcomes.

The Workshop Process

On the evening of August 10th 2011, more than 100 representatives of global development and international agencies, business, academia and civil society organisations gathered at the Farm Inn in Pretoria. The purpose was to discuss the national e-skills agenda as well as aligning global development communities’ programmes and support to e-skilling South Africa for equitable prosperity and global competitiveness. The workshop was developed in three interlinked parts so as to share information with the participants, to provide for participants’ input and to achieve the workshop objectives.



1st Part: Introduction to the e-Skills Programme

The first part of the workshop was developed in order to present the concept of the e-Skills Institute (e-SI), as one of the key flagship programmes of the DoC, and also to start discussions on the strategic planning and policy development issues for e-skills. Three key addresses were presented from the DoC and UNDP perspectives. The following paragraphs outline some of the highlights of these presentations. The complete presentations are included as Annexures to this report.

The Director General of the DoC, Ms Rosey Sekese, started the session reaffirming that the Department was committed to “working faster, harder and smarter in ensuring that we take technology to the people in service of the people”. She emphasized the fact that to achieve “success in addressing the vital matter of e-skilling our nation, we must recognise that there are many players, there are many efforts and there many institutional needs. Thus, if we are going to succeed in our endeavours, we need to develop a collaborative framework to align effort, define gaps and build appropriate responses.” Ms Sekese highlighted the important role and purpose of the e-Skills Institute (e-SI) as a national catalytic institution to lead this process.

The Deputy Minister of the DoC, Mr Obed Bapela, emphasized that “if South Africa wants to be a serious part of the socio-economic fabric of the world going into the future, we have no real alternative but to seriously engage with the Information Society and the Knowledge-based economies.” In confirming that skilling South Africans was a key strategic priority for the South African Government, Deputy Minister Bapela pointed out that “it is simply true that in going forward without adequate appropriation of e-skills, there can be no sustainable development and there can be no sustainable employment.” The Deputy Minister concluded by saying that the Government of South Africa has “established the e-Skills Institute as a national catalytic collaborator and shaper in order to address the growing need for coordination and leadership in addressing the very serious skills problem that the country faces in adequately addressing our national strategic goals, MDGs and WSIS Plan of Action.

The Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Dr Agostinho Zacarias, described the new approach of the UN agencies in the country, reiterated that UNDPs Programme was “now focused on supporting the country’s ongoing efforts towards the promotion of inclusive growth and development in collaboration with national, regional and international knowledge institution/centres of excellence.” Dr Zacarias said that the existing skills gap in South Africa cannot be addressed fully through traditional formal education alone. Hence, a combined and collaborative approach was needed “to mobilize the key national players, and invite the international development partners to join this critical initiative that goes beyond technology and addresses the core developmental priorities of the country as captured in the current Medium Term Strategic Framework.” Dr Zacarias pointed out that “in a developmental state like South Africa, the market mechanism alone cannot address the issue of equitable prosperity”; and further, that “it requires public-private partnerships to facilitate access to cutting edge technologies for social innovations and promote local entrepreneurship development if we are to reach the poor as well as the marginalized segment of the population, including the youth, women, and people with disabilities”. He concluded reaffirming “UNDPs full commitment to support national and provincial level efforts around ICT geared towards development. While playing this important catalytic role, UNDP will work very closely with the Department of Communications and other relevant government structures as well as knowledge institutions to promote ICT for development”.

2nd Part: Deliberations of the workshop (panel discussions)

The second part of the workshop was developed to focus on socio-technical aspects of the development of knowledge and information management: broadband, job creation, innovation, required technical capacity, human resource implications and other associated issues with an explicit focus on e-skills. The workshop design provided for a range of recognized experts from Business, Education, Government, international bodies and civil society to share their expertise and experiences as catalysts for discussion. The workshop had three major themes;


9

Each of these themes was a topic of the three panel sessions. The panel session presentations and panel discussions are included in the annexes of this report.

Three themed panel presentations and discussions were held in full plenary. The panel facilitators were provided with key questions to challenge the panellists and stimulate debate about understandings, thematic linkages, policy response and the role of institutions.

Key Drivers Identified for e-Skilling South Africa

The panel discussion identified the following key drivers to e-Skilling South Africa:

The Multi-dimensional Nature of e-Skills – ‘the cross cutting factor’

e-Skilling is a multi-faceted matter cutting across many established structures, functions and service delivery options across business, government, education, civil society and the international development community. This multi-faceted nature of e-skills operates vertically, horizontally and diagonally within and across entities and sectors. Generally, the initial adoption of ICT occurred within organisations, professions and specialties as an ‘add-on’ for efficacy of existing processes. The multi-faceted capacity for aggregation and new forms of efficacy in service delivery, professional development and personal development in a societal sense are relatively recent phenomenon. This underpinned an issue highlighted by Mr Larry Pokpas (facilitator) from the University of the Western Cape which was the fact that, “The internet was only introduced in South Africa in 1993, it is therefore still a relatively new concept in the broader society although it has received high public and business acceptance.”

It has now become increasingly apparent across business, government, education and civil society that the key focus of all these efforts must be centred on the people i.e. “people come before technology”. The technology is now rapidly converging, becoming more powerful, less costly, generally easier to use and much more suited to ‘developmental states’. The new technology is facilitating the emergence of ‘people centric’ models (often ‘self-organising systems’) around social, community and socio-economic approaches in dealing with the major issues that developmental States like South Africa faces. This requires a ‘rethink’ of current organizational/sectorial boundaries, cultural identity, service delivery and self-reliance. Knowing the demands (i.e. local, societal and national) and the gaps in service delivery (across government, business, education and within civil society) is vital in maximizing the use of ICT’s for equitable prosperity and global competitiveness. This context dramatically underpins the need for a concerted effort in e-skills across the board.

The persistent economic shift towards Knowledge-based Economies/Creative Economies

One of the key drivers repeatedly brought up in the panel presentations was the changing nature of the work force towards ‘service’ and ‘knowledge workers’ from agriculture and manufacturing and the increasing value of creative industries in developing nation states. As Mrs Edna dos Santos from UNCTAD pointed out, the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) did not affect the countries in the ‘south’ as much as those located in the ‘north’ and that in both the ‘south’ and the ‘north’ creative industries grew during the GFC. In fact the economic impact of creative industries in countries in the ‘south’ grew substantially during the GFC and since that time ICT’s played a foundational role in this growth. According to Mrs Edna dos Santo, “it is important to use ICT’s but equally important to apply them correctly” to develop equitable prosperity.



10

One of the great values of properly appropriated ICT’s is its capacity to address the problematic growth of urbanization which often embeds challenging poverty in peri-urban centres that have great difficulty in being adequately serviced. The impact of this urbanization on crime and health cannot be over-estimated. Hence, the urban/rural ICT access divide when coupled with adequately developed e-skills applied not only in traditional service delivery and businesses but also in the development of new businesses and social media applications in rural and peri-urban areas is a significant matter for South Africa as well as many developing Nation States.

There is an obvious need for a collaborative policy platform across government, business, education and civil society to address this matter in an innovative, sustainable and locally owned manner. There was continual reinforcement of the notion, that ‘access’ (to ICT) needed to be aligned with a concerted effort to socially appropriate the emerging forms of ICT (including mobile and cloud computing) through relevant e-skills development in government, business, education and civil society. Unless this occurred, the effort would not only be ineffective in dealing with the major socio-economic issues facing peri-urban and rural areas, but could in fact make matters worse by escalating the ‘socio-economic divide’.

A significant issue was the recognition that such an approach needed to be accompanied with a structured programme of “change management” within all levels of government and local leadership that serves this socio-demographic. There was also a strong support for the UNDP’s approach of facilitating the establishment of ‘learning institutions’ as a means to affect these changes and to build in continuity and locally owned sustainability. There was a wide recognition that approaches to date had not delivered appreciable changes in socio-economic upliftment, equitable prosperity or even grown an increasing self-reliance

New Culture - Collaboration, Aggregation

As the Deputy Minister, the Director General of DoC, the leadership of the e-Skills Institute and the UNDP Resident Representative all pointed out in their opening presentations of the workshop, e-skills is a ubiquitous matter and of necessity in order to deal with the huge problems that South Africa faces regarding this matter, is the development of a collaborative architecture. This architecture requires openness, recognition of the organizational needs of all stakeholders and a formality that can not only channel existing efforts more effectively but also provide a base for evaluation and research from inception.

The e-Skills Institute’s provincial Knowledge Production and Coordination Hubs and the establishment of the Research Network for e-Skills (ResNeS) provide a substance that all stakeholders in the e-skills area can help establish and have confidence in. It is a truism that the new ICTs favour the aggregation of both supply and demand into larger economies of scale and the establishment of new points of value along the value chain (e.g. Google, Skype, Facebook etc). With such a large deficit in e-Skills to face and a relatively small population of some 50 million people, South Africa simply cannot afford not to aggregate its efforts through the establishment of a collaborative architecture which allows all stakeholders to contribute in a coordinated manner. Such an approach is in the best interests of businesses as it will dramatically increase the size of the market. Only the Government can provide the leadership to establish this process which will allow international agencies to amplify the impact of efforts and thus strengthen the approach.

It was noted that the e-skills space has many contributors operating within narrow approaches and there are no overall coordinating mechanisms that can provide useful leadership in appropriate standards, defining gaps and developing new applications that maximize the impact of the new technological products within a developmental state context. It was also pointed out that embedded monitoring and evaluation needed to be included at the commencement of the process as measuring progress would also be critical in determining the way forward.

According to Mr Peter Drury (CISCO), “the way to solve differences is to combine different learning with practical learning”. Mr Jetro Buttner (Development Gateway Foundation) highlighted the fact that companies could use recruitment processes to accommodate new graduates by lowering the experience needed for positions and the adoption of internships and in-house training.



11

The concept of entrepreneurship was highlighted as an essential component in establishing new businesses. The models of “The Creative Economy” were examined following Mrs Edna dos Santos (UNCTAD) and Prof Greg Hearn (the Institute of Creative Industries, QUT, Australia) presentations. This discussion highlighted the great creative industries opportunities for job creation in traditional established industry and new industry creation, which can be obtained in developmental states.

All of the new technological development in ICT is about collaboration and co-creation (Web 2.0, cloud computing, social media etc.). Prof Muirhead (Eidos Australia) and others stressed that the new opportunities were for Institutions (all sectors) to focus their approach towards development of the e-skills on a ‘co-create, co-locate, and co-produce’ manner, in order to reduce duplication and speedup the permeability of the technology.

Infrastructure and New Policy Formulation South Africa was in great need of collaborative policies and programmes to link ICT’s to service delivery. Innovative use of mobile technologies is already providing great steps forward e.g. Cell Life using Mxit, as well as national coordinated approach to knowledge production and relevant applications development would provide great advances for under-served peri-urban and ‘deep’ rural communities. This approach which shifts the focus from the failed ‘telecenter’ approach to ‘enabled service centres’ would enhance meaningful, effective and much needed service delivery in the rural areas thereby providing added incentives not to relocate to areas of extreme poverty in peri-urban environments.

3rd Part: Deliberations of the Roundtables

The workshop design provided round-table working sessions after each of the panel discussions. The local speakers and international presenters were divided in the three working groups to share their experiences and support the work of the facilitators. The third part of the workshop was designed to encourage a collaborative approach by the different participants (UN Agencies, International Community, Civil Society and Private Sector) to support the South African Government’s e-Skills Institute initiative in a planned and measured manner.

The selection of workshop participants from relevant levels within relevant agencies ensured the active participation across the working groups. The workshop process provided an “open space” setting in which (1) all of the issues that were most important to the participants could be raised and addressed and (2) most important ideas, discussion, data, recommendations, conclusions, questions, and plans for immediate action could be developed.

The coordinators of Provincial e-Skills Knowledge Production and Coordination Hubs played a central role in these working groups which brought together a small number of participants to share their experiences, insights and knowledge. The interaction allowed the participants to meaningfully contribute to the delivery of the National e-Skills Plan of Action (NeSPA) and the activities of the e-Skills Institute. A guideline for the facilitators was developed and discussed before the workshop as to ensure that open but directed discussion would take place and also to obtain the envisaged outcomes.

Identified Outcomes and Opportunities

Participants identified the following areas of interest for future collaboration:

development.

particularly in rural and peri-urban situations.



12

environment (particularly mobile, cloud and video) – define gaps and develop opportunities

particularly through collaborative multi-stakeholder approaches

and Coordination Hubs, to support local implementation and measure impact against the MTSF, the MDG’s and the WSIS Plan of Action in the society.

The table below is a summary of the key developmental areas of support that were identified by the round-table working sessions. This table reflects the key areas of support, the beneficiaries, envisaged outcomes, key stakeholders and the link to the South African national outcomes as defined in the MTSF 2009-2014.




e-he

alth

(esp

ecia

lly in

rura

l an

d pe

ri-ur

ban

area

s)

Capa

city

Dev

elop

men

t thr

ough

ap

prop

riate

e-s

kills

cur

ricul

um

deve

lopm

ent

Hea

lthca

re p

rofe

ssio

nals

Hea

lthca

re w

orke

rsPe

ri-ur

ban

and

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l co

mm

uniti

es

e-Ce

ntre

man

ager

s Pr

actit

ione

rs

Acce

ss to

qua

lity

educ

atio

nEc

onom

ic a

nd so

cial

infra

stru

ctur

eIn

clus

ive

econ

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gro

wth

, dec

ent

wor

k an

d su

stai

nabl

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elih

oods

.

Impr

oved

hea

lth c

are

MD

Gs o

n H

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care

Com

mun

ity K

now

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pow

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reco

gnise

d by

indu

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com

mun

ity le

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ork

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ated

prof

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(mob

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chno

logy

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d

acce

ss to

acc

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rvic

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plem

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d.

outp

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s

initi

ativ

es

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impr

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.

(sta

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con

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and

harm

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dev

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Envi

sage

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Iden

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fine

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oppo

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FET

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Implications and Recommendation for the Way Forward

The workshop participants demonstrated their sectorial interest support for the e-Skills Institute and its multi-stakeholder collaborative approach for addressing the massive e-skills challenges facing South Africa.

They acknowledged the strategic intent of the e-SI in:

across Business, Government, Education and Civil Society, to deliver the skills required for improved effectiveness in service delivery, business development, education, training and civil society encompassing new job alternatives within a developmental and sustainable approach for South Africa;

makers to integrate issues and requirements form grassroots level; and

Pan of Action) is crucial to achieve impactful development in the country, especially in disadvantaged communities.

to develop a framework for multi-stakeholder input, collaboration and innovation.

effort against the MTSF, MDG’s and WSIS Plan of Action. They endorsed the model of the e-SI which is aimed coordinating effort across Business Government, Education and Civil Society to impact on the goals of the MTSF 2009-2014, MDG’s and WISIS Plan of Action at the local level, and its intent to expand the Provincial e-Skills Knowledge Production and Coordination hubs to all nine provinces.

A proposal was made by UNCTAD and supported by QUT to actively engage and support the e-SI in bringing its knowledge and expertise on Creative Industries to develop the skills required in South Africa. As immediate next step UNCTAD is keen to develop a follow-up event centered in “Creative Industries” in collaboration with UNDP.

A follow up ‘one-on-one’ meetings with organizations such as DGF, NEPAD, German Embassy, and QUT will be established to explore further collaboration.

A crucial next step is the follow-up meeting with interested UN Agencies and International Donor communities to be facilitated by the UN/UNDP Resident Coordinator in the month of September. The institutions identified to participate in this meeting include IMF, WB, ITU, UNESCO, UNCTAD, ILO, UNIDO, and UNDP.



Appendices

1. Presentation by the Deputy Minister, Mr. Obed Bapela

2. Presentation by the Director General, Mrs. Rosey Sekese

3. Presentation by the UNDP Resident Representative, Dr. Agostinho Zacarias

4. Presentation by the e-Skills Institute, Ms Mymoena Sharif

5. Presentation by Mrs. Edna dos Santos - UNCTAD

6. Presentation by Mr. Jethro Buttner – DGF

7. Presentation by Ms. Nonku Dlamini - Telkom

8. Final Program of the event

9. List of participants



Appendix 1

Presentation by the Deputy Minister, Mr. Obed Bapela

Programme DirectorHonourable Minister Roy Padayachie (In London)Senior Managers and Government RepresentativesDr. Agostinho Zacarias UN and UNDP residentMembers of the International Community, Agencies and Embassies RepresentativesMs. Rosey Sekese Director-General, Department of CommunicationsCollaborative Partners of the DepartmentSenior Manager of the Department and State Owned EntitiesDistinguished GuestsLadies and Gentlemen

We are meeting here today a day after we have celebrated the National Women’s Day, as we were reflecting on the continual progress we are making to uplift the plight of women and challenges ahead. In the 17 years of democratic governance women are still confronted with challenges of poverty, lack of skills and are still oppressed with our homes and institutions. In the ICT sector we need to double our efforts to ensuring that we cap the imbalances facing us today.

It is common knowledge that for us as a nation, to have an e-skilled society we must get our education foundation phase to the correct path. This Government has made education an apex priority and strongly believes that education is not the responsibility of Government alone rather societal responsibility.

In July 2011 during the Annual National Assessment of Numeracy and Literacy Skills, President Jacob Zuma urged all South Africans to work together in support of basic education, which is the future of our children and that will lead us toward an e-skilled society.

With the proper foundation from our schooling system I have no doubt in my mind that we can achieved the desired outcome of producing a skilled and economically viable university graduates who are not just job-seekers rather entrepreneurs and innovators who will ensure we realise as the Department of Communications our motto that of “making South Africa a Global Leader in Harnessing ICT for socio-economic Development”.

The preamble of the Constitution best captures the vision, which aspires to “establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights” and to build a “democratic and open society” in order to “improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person”.

This reminds me of the words of the former Minister of Education; Prof Kader Asmal when he outlined the strategic objective of the Government in higher education and this is what he had to say to higher education institutions; “Produce graduates who are well rounded and thoroughly grounded; who are skilled and competent; who are creative, flexible and adaptive to new challenges; who are adept in critical thinking and cultural literacy; who are enabled and empowered to participate fully in their economy, their society and their globalising world”.

Towards South Africas’ e-skills Institute

The South African Ministry of Communications has established a new wave of positive change which was launched in November 2010 shortly after our appointment to the Ministry. This new wave of change recognises that despite



our efforts in the past as a country, we are now slipping down the global e-readiness indicators. This is not because we have not been doing useful things; it just means that others are working harder than we are and this includes many countries that have less opportunity than we do.

As we are aware, the capacity and convergence of new forms of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) includes smart cell phones, tablets and cloud computing, are ‘snowballing’ at unprecedented rates and this will continue to escalate along with reducing costs of acquisition and access. The internal dynamics of many nations are now responding to these impacts and new value propositions are about how best to deal with equity of opportunity, social responsibility, and sustainability are now emerging. These are moving past traditional models of diffusion in a financial cost benefit paradigm. The lessons of Google, Skype, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon are very apparent for all who wish to see.

Global experience and trends emphasise three major issues;

1) Traditional cost/benefit analysis approaches are insufficient to determine the impact of the new ICT on business, government, education and civil society and that convergence, diffusion and social media are establishing new value propositions in a broad cross section of national economies;

2) Aggregation of supply and demand are important keys to establishing and maintaining an equitable socio-economic position in the emerging paradigm of Internet connectivity; and

3) That in dealing with issues of socio-economic equity, there is little alternative but to embrace the new ICT developments rapidly. Nation states with a developmental agenda such as OURS which have a relatively higher adoption of mobile devices have an unprecedented opportunity to improve their position in this space much quicker than ever before.

A significant issue for our country revolves around the high proportion of underserved communities which generally have a high adoption rate of cell phones.

Further it is significant that the economic collaboration of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa), the largest economic alliance in the world, chose South Africa to become its fifth member country when South Africa is a relative economic and population minnow in comparison to the other members.This emphasises two major issues;

1) The importance that BRICS sees in South Africa within a continental sense; and

2) With a relatively small population, South Africa cannot afford a disaggregated approach to ICT development, appropriation and diffusion whilst all the other members of BRICS have a distinct tendency for centralised economic approaches.

Hence in developing a national approach to addressing the significant challenge that South Africa faces with appropriating ICT right across its society it is vital that it aggregates both supply and demand into larger economies of scale. Disaggregation into small entities that cannot develop sufficient scale to sustain innovative collaborative approaches in a world which increasingly favours increasing economies of scale simply does not make useful sense. This is particularly true for significant issues such as e-Skills that involve a range of traditional disciplines in a rapidly converging space.

So, if South Africa wants to be a serious part of the socio-economic fabric of the world going into the future, we have no real alternative but to seriously engage with the Information Society and the Knowledge-based economies. It is simply true that in going forward, without adequate appropriation of e-skills there can be no sustainable development and there can be no sustainable employment.Collaboration and Cooperation

So, what positives do we have to help us leapfrog up the ladder? Well, firstly, we have a collective approach that involves a number of State Owned Enterprises; in many countries these entities are now augmenting to government strategies as they fight increasing economies of scale of global players.



Secondly, we have a surprising amount of dedicated skills and commitment in the right places in our society (in Business, Government, Education and Civil Society) and currently an amazing interest in providing useful support from international business (CISCO, RIM, Samsung, Google, Apple spring to mind), Education (India, South Korea, Cuba, the Eidos University network in Australia, Mexico), donor countries including Finland, Sweden, South Korea to make a difference.

The support of Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) in CISCO over the last two years has been particularly important in this regard.

Thirdly, we are well positioned in terms of the technology leaps that are currently taking place. The convergence of increasing ICT capacity into mobile devices really suits places like South Africa.

Fourthly, we have a plan. The Medium Term Strategic Framework 2009-2014 of the country as a guiding light that can help all of our efforts focus on the very real problems we face.

And lastly, we have a political and leadership will and a lot of good will and interest from the global ICT players and development partners who recognise that South Africa offers a place to develop new approaches to engage with half of the world’s population and that is indeed a very big market. This is a fact that underpins South Africa’s formal inclusion in BRICS.

Now a very big message I constantly hear from across business, education, government and civil society is that we have a very serious mismatch between our current training and education offerings and market demand.

Government will lead and provide the policy framework for a new wave of positive change. What is also very obvious is that with 50 million people and such as big disparity in our people’s fortune that we aren’t big enough to compete amongst ourselves and we don’t have the time to mess around operating in silos of expertise.

To get to where we need to be and to make maximum advantage of the current explosion in ICT mobile capacity we need to develop the means to collaborate across government, business, education, civil society and global development agencies to develop and deliver real change, sustainable change at the local level within the MTSF, MDGs and WSIS Plan of Action.

Thus to bring all of this together, we have established the e-Skills Institute as a national catalytic collaborator and shaper to address the growing need for coordination and leadership in addressing the very serious skills problem that the country faces in adequately addressing our national strategic goals, MDGs and WSIS Plan of Action.

Because it has recognised the complexity of the converging space of ICT, the e-SI has taken some well-considered time to engage with global IT, service providers across Business Government, Education and Civil Society in South Africa and beyond to develop an inclusive e-Skills Plan of Action (NeSPA) that has strong stakeholder support and maximises opportunities in the current ICT developmental space.

It is obvious that there is a great need to formally converge the activities of a number of existing entities so that a more inclusive approach can be developed, delivered and measured in innovative ways.

Now we have learnt from past experience that simply throwing money at existing systems has a very mixed level of success when it comes to delivering against



the real needs of our country. We now know that we have approach these things collectively across the board from the top down and from the bottom up; we have to take notice of what is happening elsewhere and we have to apply lessons within the context of our own environment.

This is what the New Wave of Positive Change within the Ministry and the National e-Skills Plan of Action are about. We must build this new approach of e-Skills based on a demonstrated commitment and success. This is not only to ensure that we are building on solid ground but also to demonstrate to others that the way ahead must be about genuine effort that is based on sound integration of technology addressing local needs in an integrated manner within a realistic achievement framework at the local level.

This is simply a wonderful opportunity for us all. Our job over the next day is to provide the leadership in developing a global contributory framework to enable e-skilling South Africa for equitable prosperity and global competitiveness.

I am very excited about the approach that we have taken together with our leading partner the UN/UNDP and I look forward to the outcome of the workshop. I urge you all to participate fully in the workshop, to look towards ways that we can collaborate and build a sustainable effort that is ‘owned’ by us all and that can demonstrate impact on our strategic plans to provide a more equitable and prosperous nation that can be a useful example to others.

Good Luck with you deliberations.

I Thank You



Appendix 2

Presentation by the Director General, Mrs. Rosey Sekese

Honourable Minister,Honourable UN and UNDP Resident, Dr. Agostinho Zacarias Distinguished Guests

A very warm greeting to you all. Thank you for making the effort to attend this important workshop. I trust that our international guests have an enjoyable time in our country and leave with positive feelings about what we are doing here to address the very real issue that we face in preparing our Nation for equitable prosperity and global competitiveness in the Information Society and Knowledge economies.

Please let me add to the comments of our Minister Padayachie on the importance we have placed on e-skilling. We are committed to working faster, harder and smarter in ensuring that we take technology to the people in service of the people.

The e-Skills Institute is a flagship project of my Department. The need for the e-SI in our country at this time cannot be overemphasised. In supporting its vital work, we must be mindful of a number of key issues.

1). Urgency. South Africa’s reducing position in the global e-readiness indicators is instructional in recognising that we must prioritise the matter, we must develop renewed vigour and we must develop new approaches. The new technology that is now emerging suits the dynamic of our developmental state and we need to move swiftly to capitalise on the opportunity that this provides. Not only is this vital for our current position, we need to recognise that this is a competitive world we live in and that a lack of action in this space will not do us any good nor help us to leverage the opportunity we have been given through BRICS.

2) Collaboration. The e-skills agenda is a complex and multi-stakeholder space that operates across a wide range of disciplines in government, business, education, civil society and I include here international development agencies. Hence, success in addressing the vital matter of e-skilling our nation, we must recognise that there are many players, there are many efforts and there many institutional needs. Thus if we are going to succeed in our endeavours, we need to develop a collaborative framework to align effort, define gaps and build appropriate responses. The e-Skills Institute has been established with this clearly in mind.

3) Global lessons. Whilst we have our own culture, needs and key success factors that define how we develop approaches that can impact our urgencies, we ignore the lessons of the world at our peril. Quite often approaches that have worked in the successful market led economies of the world simply don’t work well in our situation. But this does not mean that we can’t learn from each to our mutual benefit. 4) Research and evaluation. Any approach we undertake in this space must go hand in hand with research and evaluation that can inform not only praxis but sound policy development as well. We are in largely uncharted waters with some of this work and we need to be creative in developing our responses to the challenges that we face in the Information Age and Knowledge Economies within the context of a developmental agenda.

In recognising the foundational nature of these key issues, it is important that we build a collaborative framework that works WITH our people, the industry, the



service providers right across the board and the international community and that builds innovative, positive and practical responses for our future. We must recognise that many are watching to see how we respond and that many are looking for answers that can be ‘best fit’ for their situations.

The Department of Communications is very excited about the commitment that many thought leaders and companies have given the e-Skills Institute initiative; firstly, at the e-Skills Summit in July 2010 when we had 300 national and international thought leaders from Business, Government, education and Civil Society help us develop the e-Skills National Plan of Action (NeSPA); secondly, the valuable input that we received from IBSG and others in CISCO have provided over the last two years, and thirdly the commitment that the South African ICT Industry Compact on Competitiveness and Job Creation have provided at their recent meeting on 31 July.

I thank the UNDP and particularly Dr Agostinho Zacarias & his team for assembling this meeting and your attendance. Of course many of you also know Dr Wesso and his team, particularly Ms Mymoena Sharif, at the e-Skills Institute who have also worked hard with the UNDP on this agenda.

I recognise the high level of skill and experience that we have in the room and have very high expectations from this workshop; particularly in helping to define how we can best work together, how we can best leverage from our collective efforts and how we can best align our collective efforts in ways that impact the MTSF (in particularly job creation and rural development), the MDG’s and the WSIS Plan of Action.

For my part, I can assure you that I will work hard in the many forums that I attend as Director General to ensure that everybody is aware of the exciting approaches that the e-Skills Institute is developing and delivering and that I will be looking for ways that these bodies can contribute and support the e-SI. It goes without saying that the Department is committed to the e-Skills Institute which is a flagship project of the Ministry.

In conclusion, you can see that we are very serious about this effort and we mean action orientated business. We welcome and thank you for your attendance, your participation and the knowledge you bring to us. Please give us your input, you can rest assured that we are listening and that we are looking for ‘win – win’ approaches and solutions. It is in our interest that you win and we would like to think that it is in your interests that we win.

Thank you.



Appendix 3

Presentation by the UNDP Resident Representative, Dr. Agostinho Zacarias

Honorable Minister Padayachie, DG Ms. Sekese, DDG Dr. Wesso and colleagues from the Department, Ambassadors, High Commissioners, UN colleagues and development partners, Resource persons invited from within and outside the country,Ladies and gentlemen

UNDP is honored to be collaborating with the government of SA, especially with the Department of Communications in the area of ICT for development with a focus on capacity building that generates the required skills to promote employment at all levels.

Honorable Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen

Recently, UNDP and its sister agencies have gone through a stock taking exercise to be more responsive to the needs and priorities of South Africa. In fact, in a joint evaluation conducted by the UN and the government of South Africa, while it was found that the collaboration was fruitful, the country has not benefitted fully from this collaboration due to a fragmented approach and an emphasis on relatively small pilot projects by the UN rather than on the provision of strategic advisory services. To overcome these challenges, we have successfully repositioned our support to focus more on high-end technical advice and upstream support. Accordingly, our programme is now focused on supporting the country’s ongoing efforts towards the promotion of inclusive growth and development in collaboration with national, regional and international knowledge institution/centres of excellence.

This partnership with the government of South Africa is one of the pillars of our strategic collaboration which is critical to build a 21st century South African society where equity and inclusiveness can be achieved over time. This means, we need to link skills development to the broader development agenda, which will include innovation, MDGs, unblocking service delivery, as well as agrarian transformation and good governance and accountability.

Honorable Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The existing skills gap in South Africa and elsewhere cannot be addressed fully through traditional formal education only. It is in this context, I would like to emphasize the role of ICT for development. The new global economy, characterized by high level knowledge products and production, requires human resources that can absorb such knowledge, adapt it to local conditions and at the same time generate local innovation that can have real impact on South Africa’s economy vis-à-vis the world market.

It is with the above in mind that we need to mobilize the key national players, and invite the international development partners to join this critical initiative that goes beyond technology and addresses the core developmental priorities of the country as captured in the current medium term strategic framework.

In a developmental state like South Africa, the market mechanism alone cannot address the issue of equitable prosperity. It requires public-private partnerships, to facilitate access to cutting edge technologies for social innovations and



promote local entrepreneurship development if we are to reach the poor as well as the marginalized segment of the population, including the youth, women, and people with disabilities. Honorable Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Allow me to touch on some of UNDP’s key activities revolving around ICT for development. Globally UNDP supports 230 e-governance and access to information projects in 84 countries, which is contributing to the modernization of public institutions, enhanced citizens’ access to public information, the promotion of participatory development, as well as improving public service delivery. Coupled with these are also complementing policy regulatory effort and advancing citizen access and connectivity. In South Africa, our association with the e-skills institute and the establishment of the five knowledge hubs will benefit from these global experiences.

Honorable Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen,

At this developmental stage of South Africa, where national policies and strategies are continuously interrogated against the national goal of addressing inequalities, it is highly critical that ICT is fully incorporated and integrated in the national planning process at all levels. In this regard, we would like to recognize the ongoing national efforts around ICT for development.

At the beginning of my statement, I touched on the UNDP repositioning process for upstream engagement within the South African context. In this connection, I would like to reiterate our full commitment to support national and provincial level efforts around ICT geared towards development. While playing this important catalytic role, UNDP will work very closely with the Department of Communications and other relevant government structures as well as knowledge institutions to promote ICT for development.

Thank you



Appendix 4Presentation by the e-Skills Institute, Ms Mymoena Sharif



Appendix 5EDS - SAfrica Skills Aug11


42 e-Skilling South Africa for Equitable Prosperity and Global Competitiveness: Workshop Report



Appendix 6About development Gateway



Visit Us

www.developmentgateway.org



Appendix 7Telkom e-Skills Presentation



CLOSING SPEECH NOTES

Dr Harold Wesso on behalf of Ms ROSEY SEKESE

UNDP WORKSHOP – 11 AUGUST 2011

First of all let me thank you one and all for your commitment and inputs during the day to what we in the Department see as a significant part of increasing the circle of participation of the global organisations and expertise, the e-Skills Institute which as I indicated to you is a flagship project of the Department. Some of you have been long term partners of this effort and that others of you have been introduced to our work in recent times or even just this week. We welcome you all. As you have been able to see clearly during your time with us, the e-SI is a very open and collaborative effort that has defined its niche in a catalysticmanner, a definer of gaps, a supporter of building new approaches to address these gaps and a leverager of best practise relevant to our needs, no matter where this comes from. We, in South Africa simply have a long way to catch up and we don’t have the time not to clearly focus how we bring effort, skills, innovation and collective energy to addressing our e-skills issues for equitable prosperity and global competitiveness in the emerging world.

I have informed by both members of my Department, the UNDP and others of you that I have met that you have been able canvas a wide range of issues during the day and I would like to thank each of you for sharing your experiences with and providing the basis for the roundtable workshops. As I mentioned last evening, the Department of Communications is seriously open for collaboration in the e-skills space and our ears are wide open.

The big messages we have obtained from the panels and your roundtable discussions are:-1. There is great support for the e-Skills Institute and a real need to ‘collect the dots’ and a collaborative approach is essential. This means that there is a need for a collaborative architecture such as the e-SI.2. The e-skills effort needs to be situated within new ways of thinking, new paradigms which often sit outside traditional structures in Business, Government and Education to create new jobs, new industries in a sustainable approach.3. You have reinforced a belief that we hold very dear and that is ‘people come before technology’. We need to ensure that our efforts are clearly situated with a concept of visible local benefit. We need to embed ICT into everyday life. 4. There was a strong statement that we need to conceive of our approaches within an attitude of ‘Investing’ rather than just ‘spending. We need to embed a view that our responsibility is to invest effort, expertise and policy development in our future. This is our responsibility and not up to anyone else. 5. We were very happy to hear strong support for our approach that embeds Monitoring and Evaluation into the very being of our efforts.6. The shift in approach over recent years from a ‘telecentre’ approach to that of ‘enabled service centres’. Now we have already commenced this journey in South Africa and it is obvious that we need to do more in this space.7. Some of the discussionemphasised the need to a. co-create, b. to co-locate and c. to co-produce As this is a core functionality of our provincial e-Skills Knowledge Production and Coordination Hubs, that e-SI is establishing with our partnering Universities, Business and donor agency partners in five locations across South Africa.8. We have loudly heard the interest of many of you in wanting to be involved in our efforts. You can rest assured that we will actively pursue this interest in aligning your efforts with our goals, aspirations and activities for the e-Skills agenda to impact the South African Medium Term Strategic Framework, the MDG’s, WSIS Plan of Action in partnership with the UNDP. The importance of this alignment of effort to national goals was also a strong point made by panellists.9. We are grateful to UNCTAD in laying out a very useful and applicable model to support what was called a ‘strategic nexus’. This approach supports what we are doing in bringing about sustainable development and sustainable employment.



The work undertaken today is difficult work, often forcing us to all think outside of our traditional experience. However, it often brings us face-to-face with the real sustainable impact of what we are doing. It is sometimes not a comfortable experience and we thank you for walking this path with us. I can assure that in getting to this position has not always been a comfortable experience for us either, as we have had to challenge many things we have done and not done in the past. However, our current partners and the efforts that you have put in today have reaffirmed many of the approaches we are currently undertaking with the e-Skills Institute and its hubs.

We are particularly grateful for the support of UNDP in conducting this workshop ; Dr Zacarias and his team; thanks also to Dr Wesso and Ms Mymoena Sharif and their DoC Team and a very special thanks to you all for making the effort to attend, for the positive manner in which you have engaged with us and helping us to better understand that this is a shared journey and that you all have interest in what we are doing. As I mentioned last evening we value your efforts and we trust that we can reciprocate this and add value to your efforts in what is undoubtedly a major issue for South Africa.

SUMMARY AND WAY FORWARD

UNDP WORKSHOP – 11 AUGUST 2011

The work undertaken today is difficult work, often forcing us to all think outside of our traditional experience. However, it often brings us face-to-face with the real sustainable impact of what we are doing. It is sometimes not a comfortable experience and we thank you for walking this path with us. I can assure that in getting to this position has not always been a comfortable experience for us either, as we have had to challenge many things we have done and not done in the past. However, our current partners and the efforts that you have.

The e-Skills Institute together with the UNDP will follow-up with all the organisations that have expressed interest in joining with us on this journey.

We will analyse the content of the workshop which has all been recorded and use this to improve what we are doing.

This workshop will be followed with a meeting with the wider UN family (ITU, World Bank, IMF, UNESCO), facilitated by the UNDP, most likely to be held in South Africa in mid-September.

We will be using this workshop as a part of the ITU Kaleidoscope to be held in Cape Town in December.

We appreciate the offer of UNCTAD to work with UNDP, the QUT & the e-Skills Institute to conduct a workshop to help us review our policies, develop new approaches and link with the many exciting efforts around the world in the Creative Industries.

The Research Network for e-Skills (ResNeS) will be conducting its second research colloquium in East London in the first week of November. We encourage your participation; we would welcome participation by Business in both sponsorship and content; the details for this Research Colloquium have been included in workshop pack.

And lastly, arrangements are currently being made for South Africa’s second e-Skills Summit to be held in July 2012. We welcome your interest in this event which follows the most successful event held in July 2010.

We are particularly grateful for the support of UNDP in conducting this workshop ; Dr Zacarias and his team especially Gonzalo Aramayo and Raul Zambrano.



Time Activity Presenter Session Chair08:00 – 08:15 Registration

08:15– 08:30 Welcoming Address Dr. Harold Wesso, e-Skills Institute

Mr. Israel Dessalegne UNDP

08:30 – 08:45 Objectives and plan for the day Mrs. Mymoena Sharif – e-Skills Institute

08:45 – 09:45 Panel Discussion 1: e-Skills to promote inclusive growth (Poverty Reduction, Rural Development, Capacity Development, and Policy)

Kick Off Presentations: Chairperson Mr. Ramesh Bharuth-ran – UWC

Chairperson: Ramesh Bharuthran

Panelists NEPAD’s e-Africa Dr. Towela Nyirenda-Jere - NEPAD

UNDP’s Experiences Mr. Raul Zambrano - UNDP

ICDL’s Experiences Mrs. Faye Macheke - ICDL

EDOS (webex) Mr. Bruce Muirhead - EIDOS

USAASA Mr. Phineas Molele - USAASA

9:45– 10:30 Roundtable 1: Identifying the areas of collaboration; discussion of the necessary e-skills needed.

Larry Pokpas (UWC); Prof. Nepal (DUT); Carina de Villers (UP); Cecile Marsh (WSU); James Theron (VUT); Job Ogonda (UNDP); Colin Thakur (DUT); Adrian Godfrey (CISCO); Peter Drury (CISCO).

10:30 – 11:00 BREAK

11:00 – 11:45 Panel Discussion 2:Smart connected communities (Focus on e-skills, innovation, infrastructure, and job creation)

Kick Off Presentations: Chairperson: Phinda Songca (WSU) e-Skills Hubs Coordinator (EC– WSU)

Panelists UNCTAD Experiences Mrs. Edna dos Santos - UNC-TAD

CISCO Experiences Mr. Adrian Godfrey – CISCO

DGF Experiences Mr. Jethro Buttner - DGF

QUT Mr. Greg Hearn - QUT

Appendix 8Final program of the EventDay 1

Time Activity Presenter Session Chair15:00 – 18:00 Registration

18:00 – 18:15 Welcoming Address Ms Rosey Sekese – DG DOC Mr. Larry Pokpas - UWCe-Skills Hub Coordinator (WC-UWC)

18:15 – 18:30 Address by the Minister of the De-partment of Communications

Honorable Roy Padayachie – Minister DOC

18:30 – 18:45 Address by UNDP Resident Repre-sentative. Include UN collaborative framework

Dr. Zacarias – RR UNDP/RC UN

18:45 – 19:15 Presentation of the e-Skills Plan of Action: challenges and objectives

Dr. Harold Wesso and Mrs. Mymoena Sharif.– DOC

19:15 – 19:30 Objectives and plan for workshop Mrs. Mymoena Sharif

19:30 – 19:45 Logistics and methodology Mr. Gonzalo Aramayo - UNDP

19:45 – 19:50 Closing remarks by All

19:45 – 19:50 Closing remarks by All Mr. Larry Pokpas - UWC

Day 2

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11:45 – 12:45 Roundtable 2: Identifying key stakeholders to achieve goals and objectives


12:45 – 14:00 LUNCH

14:00 – 14:45 Panel Discussion 3: Taking technol-ogy to the people in the service of the people (focus on Democratic Governance, Knowledge Manage-ment and Innovation)

Kick Off Presentations: UNDP, TELKOM, GERMAN EMBASSY

Chairperson: Adrian Godfrey (CISCO)

Panelist UNDP Mr. Brian Kagoro

German Embassy Mr. Stephan Ohme

TELKOM Ms. Nonku Dlamini

SAMSUNG Mr. Ntutule Tshenye

14:45 – 15:45 Roundtable 3: Creating a collabora-tion Framework: Key objectives, Hubs, areas, and partners


15:45 – 16:00 BREAK

16:00 – 17:00 Plenary: Report Back from Working Groups. Wrap-up & preparation of presentations. Integrating the different panel discussions: com-monalities, contradictions and implications. Identify opportunities and possible collaborative ways

Reporters wrap up Chairperson: Mr. Raul Zambrano - UNDP

17:00 – 17:15 Summary & way forward Dr. Harold Wesso, e-Skills Institute

17:15 – 17:30 Closing Remarks Honorable Roy Padayachie – Minister DOC

17:30 – 18:30 Social interaction

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Appendix 8List of Participants

Title Name Surmane OrganisationMs. Adeola ABBA ILO

Ms. Magdalena Riechaut Austrian Embassy

Mr. Jethro Buttner DGF

Mr. Masa Sugano Embassy of Japan

Mr. GS Geon Embassy of the Republic of Korea

Mr. Robert Hong-Kyu Lee Embassy of the Republic of Korea

Ms. Ella Bella Generation Earth

Mr. Stephan Ohme German Embassy

Mr. Mohit Yadau High Commission of India

Mrs. Gina Weir-Smith HSRC

Ms. Nosipho Tleyise IOM

Ms. Rose Machobane Irish Aid

Title Name Surname InstitutionMr. Peter Drury CISCO

Mr. Adrian Godfrey CISCO

Mr. Sam Skosana CSIR

Mr. Ismael Desai Dimension Data

Mr. Gien Varney-Wong Earth-link

Mr. Saskia Nysschens General Manager

Ms. Faye Macheke ICDL

Ms. Nazrene Suleman NBI

Mr. Simphiwe Ngcobo NEMISA

Mr. Ndivhoniswani Tshidzumba NEMISA

Mr. Colin Abouchabki RIM

Ms. Thami Mashau SABC

Mr. Shuheid Brown Samsung

Mr. Ntutule Tshenye Samsung Africa Regional Head-quarters

Mr. Flenk Mnisi Sentech

Mr. Ahmed Ismael-Smiley Siyafunda Community Technology Centre

Ms. Robynne Erwin Smart-Exchange

Ms. Robynne Erwin Smart-Exchange

Mr. Wikus van der Merve TELKOM

Ms Boni Gantile TELKOM

Mr. Theo Rodrigues TISI

Prof Wallace Taylor TISI

Mr. Phendulani Msiya UMTHOMBO

Mr. Brian Tshiwane UMTHOMBO

Mr. Mahlomola Mofokeng UMTHOMBO

Mr. Zakhali Tshabalala USAASA

Mr. Phineas USAASA

Mr. James Varney-Wong Virtual Masifunde

PRIVATE SECTOR

UN Agencies and International organisations



Title Name Surname InstitutionMr. Carlo Vizzi City of Cape Town

Ms. Zimlo Lalendle City of Cape Town

Mr. Carlo Vizzi City of Cape Town

Ms. Elsie Mnisi DBE

Ms. Monica Koen DHET

Ms. Monica Koen DHET

Mr. Monty Sekhukhuni DoC

Mr. Jim Paterson DoC

Dr. Harold Wesso DoC

Mrs. Mymoena Sharif DoC

Mr. Marius van Niekerk DoC

Mr. Refilwe Tshabalala DRD

Mr. Clinton Heimann DRDLR

Mr. Anthony Arendse DRDLR

Mr. Isaac Maredi DST

Mr. Johan Neethlmg DST

Ms. Pulane Masebe DTI

Mr. / Ms Vusi Mthembu E-SI

Mr. Derick Bayard Gov & International Relations

Mr. L Chetty Natcom UWESCO

Mr. Timothy Murwa National Treasury

Mr. Robin Toli National Treasury

Mr. George Sepeng NT

Mr. Neville Pretorius NT

Ms. Fiona Wilson PGWC

Mr Dauglas Cohen SALGA

Mr. Tau Mashigo SARS

Mr. Tau Mashigo SARS

Dr. Dario Armini Italian Embassy

Dr. Towela Nyirenda Jere NEPAD e-Africa Programme

Mrs. Jacqueline Nzoyihera UN OHCHR

Mrs. Edna dos Santos UNCTAD

Mr. Job Odonga UNDP

Mr. Brian Kagoro UNDP

Mr. Raul Zambrano UNDP

Dr. Agostinho Zacarias UNDP

Ms. Nolwazi Mhodi UNDP

Mr. Israel Desselegne UNDP

Mr. Gonzalo Aramayo UNDP

Mr. Kizito Nsanzya UNDP - Health Sector

Ms. Shezana Sasdic UNHCR

Mrs. Marie-Evelyne Petrus-Barry UNIC

Mrs. Nokuthula Prusent UNICEF

Mr. Levy Maduse UNIDO

Mr. Eugene Mahlehla WHO

Dr. Patrick Abok WHO

GOVERNMENT



Title Name Surname InstitutionMr. Colin Thakur Durban University of Technology

Prof Nips Nepal Durban University of Technology

Mr. Adrian Schofield Jburg Centre for Software Engineering

Prof Theo Burton University of Pretoria

Prof Carina de Villiers University of Pretoria

Dr. Hossana Twinomurinzi University of Pretoria

Mr. HW HW Pretorius Univeristy of Pretoria

Dr. Zoran Mitrovic UWC

Prof Ramesh Bharuthram UWC

Mr. Larry Pokpas UWC

Prof Walter Claassen UWC

Prof Louis Fourie UWC

Mr. James Theron Vaal University of Technology

Mrs. Cecile Marsh WSU

Prof Phinda Songca WSU

ACADEMIA


e-Skilling South Africa for equitable prosperity and Global

Competitiveness


undp-doc_e-skills_workshop

Government & Nonprofit

pretoria south africa

eskilling south africa

global competitiveness

global development

global partners workshop

eskills institute

eskills challenge

global economy