Rising temperatures and more extreme, unpredictable climate events are making sustainable livelihoods tough for many people living in semi-arid regions of the world. To adapt, local communities, and especially farmers, use different strategies and responses.

In semi-arid areas, climate information that is tailored to farmers? needs can reduce their vulnerability to climate change. Lucia Scodanibbio

Research in India and Africa shows that achieving sustained and equitable adaptation requires a number of things. It is critical to include a range of stakeholders to think about the problem together. It’s also important to have access to usable climate information that is considered alongside socioeconomic and governance issues. Finally, we must look at both the past and imagine possible different futures that reduce inequality and climate impacts.

How farmers are adapting

In northern Ghana farmers are increasingly suffering from delays in the onset of the annual rains. In an attempt to adapt, they are experimenting with different types of crop and water-storage systems.

In the Moyar Bhavani basin in India’s southernmost state of Tamil Nadu, unpredictable weather patterns mean that traditional rain calendars, used to decide sowing and harvesting times, are no longer accurate. And as water scarcity becomes a growing problem, farmers are turning to irrigation crops. These require expensive inputs and can push marginalised groups further into poverty and debt.

Water and pasture shortages in Kenya’s semi-arid regions, exacerbated by droughts, have driven pastoralist women into new types of livelihoods. These include petty trade in a number of products like milk, vegetables and beans, as well as small-scale agriculture. Men, on the other hand, pushed by conflicts with other groups over the use of land, often end up pursuing semi-legal activities such as the drugs or arms trades, according to our unpublished research.

Adapting to climate change

There are many ways of preparing for, and adapting to, changing climates. We suggest three important components:

1. Building on local knowledge of climate vulnerability and responses: To start with, it helps to look at why farmers and pastoralists are vulnerable to climate impacts and what they are doing in response. Communities, households and individuals have a wealth of knowledge that can be shared about the practices and ways in which they respond. Adaptation initiatives that build on local knowledge and integrate scientific findings have a higher chance of leading to sustained and effective adaptation.

2. Including climate information: Climate information that is tailored to users’ needs can help vulnerable farmers make better decisions. But this needs to be transparent, high quality and context specific, and must deal with current and expected climate trends and their impact. This kind of information is also needed by people who work with these vulnerable groups, such as extension officers, local and national governments, and NGO practitioners.

3. Collaborative learning and decision-making: If planning and decisions allow for mutual learning between scientists, decision-makers and local communities, all groups gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the limits and uncertainties about climate information, and of the types of adaptation responses that might succeed. Co-production of knowledge also supports the use of climate information in the local context and cooperative development of possible solutions.

Involving people in research may help them feel empowered and more willing to combat climate change. Lucia Scodanibbio

This approach would prompt the following types of questions to be asked:

• What makes different groups of people vulnerable, not only to climate risks but to other socioeconomic factors? How serious are the risks and when will they occur? Are there hidden opportunities?

• Will it be hotter or colder, wetter or drier? Will there be more extreme events? Will these changes further exacerbate the risks and vulnerabilities identified above?

• What responses could be developed? Which are the most urgent, given the medium and high risks? For which groups of people? Are the proposed options robust in the face of uncertainty? Are they politically and socially acceptable, and/or financially feasible?

This approach has three advantages. It ensures users are engaged in assessing vulnerability and risk. It improves the understanding of where and how historical and future climate information plays a part. And it contributes to the understanding of how climate information feeds into adaptation options.

Engagement with farmers

In the Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions project, participatory assessments have been carried out to identify the main hazards and issues affecting semi-arid communities. In these multi-stakeholder exercises, possible response strategies have been explored, from the local and regional level. In the process, people have felt empowered and able to play a role in adaptation.

In parallel, researchers are conducting analyses of climate trends and future projectionsacross a number of areas in Africa and India. They are also increasing their understanding of the governance factors that enable or curtail adaptation actions, and their impact on different social groups.

In the second phase of the project, these and other findings will be used to develop scenarios of possible futures. In these, adaptation will take a range of different forms, from incremental to transformative. As part of this process, participants will develop possible adaptation strategies and responses, and will hopefully feel empowered to act.

The aim is to develop adaptation that is more equitable, widespread and sustained. This will be crucial to help mitigate the possibility of maladaptation and ensure that people’s vulnerability to climate change is decreased.

By Gina Ziervogel, Associate Professor, University of Cape Town; Kate Kloppers, Senior Science Engagement Officer, University of Cape Town, and Lucia Scodanibbio, Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions - Project Manager, African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town

The war against tuberculosis is a step closer to being won after UCT researchers received a generous research grant to develop a cheap, safe and simple method to test for the disease.

Researchers hope to develop a test for TB that requires only a swab of saliva from a potential patient’s mouth.

Last year, the World Health Organisation said that alternatives to current TB testing were badly needed, so this US$1.02 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a welcome boost.

The two-year study builds on a pilot study which found that oral swabs correctly detected TB in most adult participants. UCT’s South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI), with counterparts from the University of Washington, will test 245 South African adults and 100 South African children. They aim to confirm that oral swabs can be used to detect TB accurately.

Researchers will compare two different kinds of oral swabs and three sampling locations in the mouth: cheek, tongue and gums. The results of these oral swab samples will be compared to traditional methods, including sputum testing and clinical diagnosis.

Diagnosing TB currently relies on analysing sputum: thick, sticky phlegm that is coughed up from the lungs. But the gelatinous quality and complexity of the substance make finding the TB bacteria difficult.

Using sputum is problematic for other reasons too. Health care providers who collect sputum are at risk because TB-sick patients who cough up sputum for testing release aerosols that can spread infection. Moreover, neither asymptomatic patients nor children are able to produce the required sputum for testing.

Associate Professor Mark Hatherill, the director of SATVI, says, “By the time people are coughing and producing sputum, they are often sick and highly contagious. An important goal in eradicating TB is to diagnose and treat people early to prevent the disease spreading to others.”

Gerard Cangelosi, leader of the study and professor of environmental and occupational health sciences in the University of Washington School of Public Health, says, “An alternative to sputum testing has been a holy grail in TB testing and diagnostics. There’s a huge need, and we think the oral swab addresses this need.”

Story Yusuf Omar. Photo supplied.

The names of five UCT buildings are under review, and the university wants your comments, suggestions and proposals.

The following buildings are up for renaming:

• Jameson Hall (upper campus)
• Smuts Hall (upper campus)
• Beattie Building (upper campus)
• Otto Beit Students Union (upper campus)
• Wernher Beit (medical campus).

Send your comments and proposals for naming these buildings (with a motivation) to:

Marius Lund
marius.lund@uct.ac.za
Room 142, Bremner Building, Lover’s Walk, Rondebosch

The deadline is:

• 15 April for Jameson Hall
• 30 May for Smuts, Beattie, Otto Beit and Wernher Beit

“The conventional politics of memorialisation is canonisation. Done in this way, though, you effectively tame [someone’s] ideas while elevating them in some fashion. Can we live up to their ideas? Can we critically engage with their ideas and see how they fit our changing situations? To what extent are we realising their vision? That to me is how you truly live up to somebody’s name. Do we simply want competing nationalisms, where you replace the previous nationalism with a new version, or do we want something more radical? Renaming ought not to be an event, but a process by which we commit to critically engage with their ideas rather than foreclose that process.”

Dr Maanda Mulaudzi
A UCT historian who heads up the task team on the naming on buildings, reflects on the politics, opportunities and potential pitfalls of names in heritage.

Read more:

• For a history on each building, read the register of building names.
• Read the statement from the team tasked with the renaming of buildings.
• Read the announcement from the vice-chancellor.
• Find out more about recent renamings at UCT. In the past year:
  • the Arts Block was renamed after AC Jordan, and
  • the Graduate School of Humanities was renamed after Neville Alexander.

On 13 April UCT’s Programme for Improving Mental Health Care (PRIME) presented findings to world financial leaders in Washington which show that it’s possible to narrow the large treatment gap for mental health care in low- and middle-income countries. The findings were presented at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meeting.

Bridge the gap: PRIME’s Prof Crick Lund demonstrated that implementing mental health care plans are extremely cost-efficient in low- and middle-income countries.

PRIME’s Professor Crick Lund (lead investigator) presented recommendations for setting up, costing and evaluating mental health care plans in low- and middle-income countries. PRIME was selected out of a long list of mental health programmes worldwide to present at this inaugural event.

PRIME’s goal is to generate evidence on the implementation and scaling up of treatment programmes for priority mental conditions in primary and maternal health care contexts in low-resource settings. The group is currently conducting research in South Africa, India, Nepal, Ethiopia and Uganda.

Their research has demonstrated that implementing mental health care plans is extremely cost-efficient. The PRIME team calculated the cost of implementing mental health care plans over a five- to 15-year scale-up period. These costs range from US$0.20 to 0.60 per capita in India, Nepal, Uganda and Ethiopia, and are close to US$2 per capita in South Africa.

“There is an urgent global need to address mental health as a public health and development issue,” said Lund, professor at the Centre for Public Mental Health. “Through our work in PRIME, we have developed processes and tools for ministries of health, NGOs and other researchers to implement and scale up mental health services in other low- and middle-income countries.”

The unmet need for mental health care is high in most low- and middle-income countries. The consequences of untreated mental disorders include suffering, diminished quality of life, disability, human rights abuses, stigma and discrimination, poverty, poor physical health and premature mortality.

The next stage of PRIME research will include evaluation of the implementation of the mental health care plans as well as further research on scaling up the programme.

For more information or to request interviews, contact PRIME at maggie.marx@uct.ac.za or visit the PRIME website.

Story Maggie Marx. Photo Michael Hammond.

Dr Gideon Nomdo has been a Mellon co-ordinator since the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) Programme was formally established at UCT in 2002. Having being funded by the Mellon Foundation himself, Nomdo unpacks the idea behind the programme that aims to boost the numbers of black academics at UCT.

Nomdo argues that it’s essential to have students interrogate their identities as a core part of their academic experience.

“The competition this year was out of this world,” says Nomdo about the 2016 MMUF cohort. “It’s getting tougher every year. They’re well read, articulate and they’ve thought about what they want to do after the graduate degree.”

The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Programme aims to recruit young black students into academia. The American programme branched out to South Africa and has been running at UCT since 2002. Each year five students are selected as Mellon Undergraduate Fellows.

“Issues of race and identity are huge items on Mellon’s agenda,” explains Nomdo, who lectures in the Centre for Higher Education Development.

MMUF is open to students who are entering the final year of a three-year degree or the third year of a four-year degree. Students in a three-year degree are expected to apply for an appropriate honours programme. Southern African Development Community students are also welcome to apply.

Students interrogate their identity

The fellowship pushes its fellows to think out of the box and deal with identity issues both from a UCT and a South African context. “It’s quite interesting to see how they [the students] unpack issues of how they identify as black,” says Nomdo

In 2004 MMUF started admitting coloured and Indian students, which has added diversity to the cohort and has made the programme more dynamic.

“The success of the MMUF programme depends on the success of the cohort; it’s just five students and we’ve got them for two years,” Nomdo says.

“In the first few years, it was very interesting to see how coloured students identify and how black African students identify as black in terms of the South African context,” says Nomdo.

He infuses identity politics into his teaching as a matter of course, be it a language course or gender studies module. “We get students to think very carefully about what it means to be a future black academic,” he says.

Belgravia to UCT via Simon’s Town

Nomdo is a teacher by training and trade, so it’s little surprise that he revels in nurturing young scholars.

But his was not a linear trail from Belgravia High School. After matriculating in 1984, Nomdo had ambitions to be a toolmaker.

“My friends were toolmakers and they were driving fancy cars, so I figured I wanted to be one too,” he grins. So off he went to the Simon’s Town naval dockyard to learn the trade.

“Lucky for me, the toolmakers’ shops were crowded!” he laughs. But it was after spending six months hammering out ship parts in a blacksmith’s workshop that he baulked at the idea of spending the rest of his life making tiny metal springs.

So Nomdo enrolled at Hewat, the teacher training college in Athlone, and completed a Higher Diploma in Education. Thereafter he spent “the best two years” of his life teaching at Turfhall Primary.

His UCT journey began with an undergraduate degree in 1992, and it continues.

He was funded from honours through to master’s level by the Mellon Foundation and, had he not landed a teaching post, they would have funded his doctoral studies too.

“The proposal was already accepted, and all I had to do was complete the writing,” he says. But the peace of mind of a steady job won the day, and Nomdo has been teaching and researching since then. He completed his PhD in December 2015.

“My case studies for my PhD were MMUF students, so this made my research really meaningful for me,” says Nomdo.

He has taught in the humanities faculty’s Academic Development Programme since 1999 and became a Mellon co-ordinator at UCT in 2002.

MMUF’s mission at UCT is to nurture Mellon fellows’ aspirations of embarking on a career in academia and to increase the number of black professors. It’s about correcting historical disadvantage, says Nomdo, and with South Africa’s legacy of apartheid, the five students selected each year are all from historically disadvantaged backgrounds.

“It’s all about how one navigates and negotiates their identity in the institution,” says Nomdo.

These students are each assigned a mentor of their choosing, and this established academic guides them through their final undergraduate year and first year of postgraduate work.

Having a mentor for two years helps to “demystify academia” for up-and-coming scholars, says Nomdo. As does being whisked off to regular workshops and conferences locally and internationally, and presenting research papers to critical peers.

“Very often when you enter academia you don’t really know what’s happening behind the scenes, what professors are actually doing. Once Mellon students reach the lecturer level, they’ve seen it all,” he says.

Story Yusuf Omar and Chido Mbambe. Photo Yusuf Omar.

Research has revealed that South African learners born after the end of apartheid, the so-called ‘born-free’ generation, are less supportive of democracy than their parents or older generations in comparable studies. Worryingly, only 60% of students believed that democracy is always preferable, and only 45% said that it is important for them to live in a country that is governed democratically. However, the same study has shown that civic education has an important role to play in encouraging a ‘demand for democracy’ among South African youth.

Interestingly, once factors such as economic background, family situation and gender had been controlled for, the results showed that race was not a determining factor. Rather, the most important influences were found to be linked to education: the depth of the students’ knowledge of democratic processes, the degree of discussion and debate encouraged in the classroom, extracurricular activities, and their expectations of their future prospects for education all affected their desire to live in a democracy.

The survey, conducted in 2012, involved 2 500 students from 45 high schools in Cape Town, who completed a survey measuring their political attitudes and activity. Students responded to questions about their civic engagement, such as whether they would consider themselves likely to participate in a peaceful protest march, work for a political party, or contact a local official on an issue that was important to them. The survey also measured their support for democracy, asking whether they would support or disapprove of South Africa being governed by one party, coming under martial law, or returning to “the old system we had under apartheid”.

According to Robert Mattes, professor of political studies and director of the Democracy in Africa Research Unit and lead researcher on the project, the study “sought to establish the relative impact of socialisation and education on young citizens’ political values and activities, and the extent to which schools can impart a critical, engaged democratic citizenship, despite the ongoing vicissitudes of unemployment, political divisions and social uncertainty”.

Mattes concluded that “the extent to which Cape Town’s youths learn basic facts about the political system, develop an appreciation of the necessity of active, critical and lawful citizenship, and understand the importance of political procedures and institutions to democracy – all factors presumably affected by schools and teachers – makes them far more likely to demand to live in a democracy”.

So what kind of practical things can schools and teachers do to help their students develop an appreciation for democratic processes, and civic engagement in general?

Greater knowledge of politics leads to positive attitudes towards democracy

The research showed that 90% of students knew which political party controlled the national parliament; but that only about one-half of the sample could correctly identify the purpose of multiparty democracy (52%), an example of discrimination (51%), elements of the Bill of Rights (41%), which political party created apartheid (36%) or an instance of non-democracy (33%).

However, knowledge of what constitutes a democracy was shown to be the single most important determining factor influencing students’ attitudes. “Students who know more about politics, both theoretically and practically, are likely to have read and heard more about democracy and about government in general, to have thought more often about history and politics, and to have taken part in more discussions and debates about the pros and cons of various ways in which governments are organised and run,” explains Mattes. “This greater interaction with political ideas is likely, we believe, to result in more positive judgments about democracy, and correspondingly, more negative views about autocratic forms of governance.”

While students’ family situations may play a role in their knowledge of politics and governance, these results make a powerful argument for ensuring that high school students are exposed to civic education classes.

Extracurricular activities can help to foster active citizenship

Of the students who responded to the survey, 45% had participated in field trips to Robben Island, 39% had visited the District Six Museum, and 38% had visited Parliament. Such extracurricular activities, along with participation in activities organised by NGOs and community organisations, was shown to have a mostly beneficial impact on students’ anticipated participation in democratic processes.

Teachers’ openness to discussion in the classroom makes a difference

The survey also showed that students learn about democracy “simply by the style by which teachers run their classrooms, and the extent to which critical engagement is supported in the learning process,” says Mattes. “Importantly, however, it is not the total amount of classroom discussion that makes a difference, but the way in which the class is run.”

Students were found to be more approving of democratic processes when teachers allowed students to discuss current events, debate among themselves and with the teacher, and present multiple sides to an issue.

In this regard the survey showed that some Capetonian teachers are doing a good job – but there is room for improvement:

“Approximately one-half of all students said that they felt they can respectfully disagree with their teachers (54%), and that their teachers present several sides of issues when explaining them (47%). Four in ten say their teachers encourage them to make up their own minds (42%) when discussing political and social issues. However, just one-quarter say that students often spontaneously bring up social or political issues during classroom discussion (24%).”

The success of a democracy depends on the vigilance of its citizenry. As those active citizens who fought apartheid grow old and die, it will be up to the new generation of citizens to safeguard the country’s hard-won democratic freedoms, explains Mattes. For this reason it is vital that the South African curriculum includes a greater focus on understanding democracy and promoting civic activism.

Story by Ambre Nicolson. Photo of South African school children by flowcomm, accessed via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

A team of scientists from UCT, Oxford University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have made a discovery that reveals how we can improve development of more effective vaccines against tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is the biggest killer of humans due to bacterial infection. In 2014, 9.6 million people were diagnosed with Tuberculosis and 1.5 million died. The only available vaccine against tuberculosis, BCG, is given to infants to prevent severe forms of the disease but protection against lung disease is very variable, particularly in countries where TB is most common, such as South Africa.

The research team studied young children who had previously participated in a large clinical trail of a new tuberculosis vaccine conducted in Worcester. They investigated the immune response to BCG, given at birth, to determine characteristics of this response that are associate protective immunity against tuberculosis. “We looked at a number of factors that could be used as immune correlates, to try and find biomarkers that will help us develop a better vaccine.” said Professor Helen McShane from Oxford University, who led the study.

The team carried out tests for twenty-two immune response characteristics and found that elevated activation of CD4 T cells was linked to higher TB disease risk. Higher levels of T cells, that responded to the BCG vaccine by producing the immune messenger molecule, IFN, were linked with reduced risk of TB.

Antibodies to the Ag85A protein made by the TB bacterium were also identified as a possible immune correlate. Higher levels of antibodies targeted against Ag85A were associated with lower TB risk. However, the team cautions that other environmental and disease factors could also cause Ag85A antibody levels to rise and so there may not be a direct link between these antibodies and TB risk.

Professor McShane said: ‘These are useful results which ideally would now be confirmed in further trials. They show that antigen-specific T cells are important in protection against TB, but that activated T cells increase the risk”.

UCT Associate Professor Tom Scriba and his team at the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI).

Associate Professor Tom Scriba from the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI) at UCT said: “TB is still a major international killer, and rates of TB disease in some areas of South Africa are among the highest in the world. These findings provide important clues about the type of immunity TB vaccines should elicit, and bring us closer to our vision, a world without TB.”

Dr Helen Fletcher from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “For the first time we have some evidence of how BCG might work, and also what could block it from working. Although there is still much work to do, these findings may bring us a step closer to developing a more effective vaccine for TB."

The team is continuing its work to develop a new and improved TB vaccine, aiming to protect more people from the disease.

The paper, T cell activation is an Immune Correlate of Risk in BCG vaccine infants, was published in the journal Nature Communications on 12 April 2016. (Download media statement)

Images courtesy of SATVI.

The Keswick Prize for Lucidity is awarded annually to a third- or fourth-year student in any technical field for the most lucid and jargon-free essay on that subject. Sir John Chippendale Lindley Keswick (who prefers to be called Sir Chips) is the sponsor of the monetary prize, which is awarded on one condition – the winner has to write Sir Chips a clear, jargon-free thank-you note.

Winners of the 2015 Keswick Prize for Lucidity, Marc Pelteret and Diederick Ferrandi, prove that lucid writing begins with lucid thinking.

This year, the prize was shared by two students in the Faculty of Commerce, Marc Pelteret and Diederick Ferrandi.

Marc Pelteret, Department of Information Systems

Marc Pelteret completed his honours in information systems in 2015. His award-winning essay, “Information Privacy and Its Importance to Consumers and Organisations”, investigated the challenges consumers face when making privacy decisions and the challenges that organisations face in making decisions about privacy and handling consumer information.

“Privacy is a hot topic these days. We’ve heard a lot from Apple, and it came into the limelight with Snowden and the NSA [US National Security Agency] revelations. Since then we’ve seen more stories about privacy and how information is being stored and stolen by hackers,” explains Pelteret. “It’s a very important topic, and actually a very complex one.”

It is always a challenge to narrow content down, but Pelteret achieves lucid writing by managing his time well and getting an outside perspective on his work.

“Don’t leave it to the last second, because it does take time,” says Pelteret. “Feedback is a must, because when working on your own you will always miss the little things. Somebody who hasn’t got as much invested in it can give you honest feedback on your work.”

Pelteret is currently working as a software developer while taking a break from his studies, but he would like to one day pursue a master’s and maybe even a PhD.

It is the second year in a row that an information systems student has won the Keswick Prize – Meg McLaren won the 2014 prize. Dr Jacques Ophoff, who supervises the information systems honours students, is proud of the department’s success.

“There is a culture of research in the Department of Information Systems, and our students work on interesting projects. This helps to motivate them,” he explains. “With my students I find that frequent verbal discussions help a lot – if students understand and can explain their research face-to-face, they usually find it easier to write a coherent report.”

Diederick Ferrandi, School of Economics

Pelteret shares the Keswick Prize with Diederick Ferrandi from the School of Economics, who is currently completing his honours in philosophy, but wrote the winning paper as part of his honours in economics in 2015.

Ferrandi’s paper, “Industrial Organisation in the South African Deep Sea Hake Trawl Sector: A Taxonomy”, investigated the industrial structure of the hake trawling industry. Ferrandi argued that government should transform the industry not by creating small companies owned by previously disadvantaged individuals, but rather by transforming the existing, established companies internally. This gives transformation the best chance of succeeding, without undermining the efficiency made possible by large-scale operations.

“The big companies are able to produce fish sustainably, efficiently and cheaply – they can only do that if they are given the freedom by government to do it on a large scale, but of course within set quota allowances. When the total quota is fragmented amongst ever-smaller firms, so that firms have to start scaling down, they can’t operate as efficiently, and fish ends up costing more for consumers,” explains Ferrandi.

Ferrandi has honed his writing skills by reading widely, both within economics and outside of it.

“Reading analytical writing, in particular, has helped train my mind to write simply and clearly,” he says. “Writing doesn’t come naturally to me. In school, my lowest marks were invariably for English, and I really struggled with essays, but I’ve always wanted to be a good writer and worked hard at it.”

“Be ambitious in wanting to be a good writer – it doesn’t come naturally, at least to me, so you really need to want to be a good writer, and want to find ways to improve your writing. Read as much as you can and preferably read only the best writing,” says Ferrandi. “Take pride in your writing – my experience has been that the first attempt is seldom any good. Re-read your work, proofread it and edit your work. It is painstaking, but it does make a difference.”

Ferrandi was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship late last year and will be heading off to the University of Oxford to complete a two-year MPhil in economics.

“I’ve always wanted to study abroad. After coming to UCT and getting into my studies and loving it, it just became a more real and exciting prospect. Receiving the Rhodes Scholarship is huge in that sense: it affords me an opportunity I never thought possible,” says Ferrandi.

Ferrandi plans to return to South Africa to work either in research or in policy, with a focus on development work.

Story Chido Mbambe. Photo Je’nine May.

When Kentse Mpolokeng took up an nGAP* lectureship in anatomy at UCT at the beginning of this year, she was fulfilling a career ambition that she had spelled out to an interview panel years ago. But it almost didn’t happen.

Kentse Mpolokeng is fast realising her dreams of furthering her studies in anatomy research.

After matriculating from Ntsu Secondary School in the Free State in 2008, Mpolokeng was not admitted to the University of the Free State Medical School. No matter.

“My dream of a bright future didn’t end there,” says Mpolokeng. “I enrolled for the Bachelor of Sciences degree at UFS and have always aimed to become one of the top medical researchers in the country.”

Upon graduating in 2012, Mpolokeng enrolled for an honours degree in anatomy the following year. One of the questions posed to her at the interview was where she saw herself in five years’ time.

“I boldly answered: I see myself as an anatomist, building my career in research as an academic and still enrolled for postgraduate studies.”

Indeed, Mpolokeng subsequently enrolled for a master’s degree that she plans to complete soon. Her academic career began as an anatomy officer at the University of the Western Cape in 2014. Just over a year later, she was appointed as senior officer in anatomy, and she took up the nGAP lectureship at UCT at the beginning of 2016.

“I am really honoured that my dream really came to unfold like that,” she adds.

Mpolokeng is also part of UCT’s Emerging Researchers Programme (ERP), which guides researchers from a foundational phase through to the highest level. ERP assists researchers with searching for sources in the library, finding funding opportunities, time management and balancing work with studies, how to prepare a poster presentation and other things, until researchers are ready to publish, says Mpolokeng.

She is particularly excited about an upcoming writer’s retreat, where ERP scholars will have two-and-a-half days to focus on their research and writing “without distraction”. Interacting with peers on the programme is also invaluable, she says, as they “open other dimensions of looking at things and give inspiration”.

“I would consider myself to be at the beginning stage of research and I’m grateful for all the support I’ve been receiving throughout the programme as it provides me with the skills and tools towards conducting successful research and sustaining it until I publish in the well-recognised journals in my field,” she says.

That research currently involves exploring variances in blood supply to the eye. The thesis is titled “The prevalence of the anatomical variations in the intraorbital part of the ophthalmic artery and its branches in a cadaver population”. But Mpolokeng is not limiting herself to the eye.

“There are lots of variations in the human body,” she says.

Once her master’s degree is out of the way, Mpokoleng plans to enrol for a doctorate in the same area.

“I would love to carry this current project to PhD level, where I will be focusing more on the clinical and radiology part, reading X-ray files to gather information,” she says.

Mpolokeng explains what intrigued her about anatomy, and says that she ignored the scepticism of her academic advisors when picking the discipline. She holds dear her late anatomy lecturer, Mr Steyl, “for the support and encouragements in influencing me to take the career path in anatomy; by also believing in me, I could make it far with anatomy”.

“I picked anatomy as my major since I didn’t do it in high school, unlike physiology,” she says. “Many people at my level of study were running away from anatomy, so I wanted to develop my knowledge on the subject only to discover that I was to fall more and more in love with it.

“I was discouraged by the academic advisors as to where I thought I was going to work after completing my studies since this is a scarce skill. I was persistent; something would surely come up. And here I am today.”

Mpolokeng lives by this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “Believe in yourself. You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face. You must do that which you think you cannot do. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

To repeat a question that once drew a bold answer: where does Mpolokeng see herself in five years’ time?

“I will have obtained my PhD and will be a senior lecturer in anatomy at UCT and will also have published several papers,” is her unapologetically ambitious response.

Story Yusuf Omar. Photo Je’nine May.

In 1946 Myfanwy Williams wrote a letter to Einstein, which led to her studying in Cape Town. The newsroom took some time out to speak to her daughter, Julia Wood, a conservationist in Cape Town and UCT alumnus who was hugely inspired by her mother.

Myfanwy in her mid-twenties working on the genetics of red grass (Themeda triandra).

When she was just 16, Williams’ fascination with the stars and science prompted her to write to Einstein. She wrote a letter to him in which she spoke about how much he inspired her. She also shared with him her passion for the stars, her dreams of becoming a scientist, and told him the story of how she would often stay up late with her friends studying the night sky.

To her astonishment, Einstein responded with an encouraging note, even though he mistakenly referred her to as “Sir”. She eagerly wrote back, “confessing” that she was a girl. In his second correspondence, Einstein told her that he did not mind her being a girl, and that she should not mind either. “One or two of her school friends also wrote to him, but he corresponded really with my mom,” says Wood.

“In those days there also was no motivation to study further,” says Wood. Although it was rare for a woman to go to university in 1948, Einstein’s words inspired Williams to study further. She studied genetics at the University of Stellenbosch and graduated cum laude despite being the only woman in the class. She also received the chancellor’s award for that year.

Strong believer in education

While astronomy was her passion, Williams was forced to compromise and settled for studying agriculture with a major in genetics.

“Her father would only pay for her to go to university if she studied agriculture. He had a farm and hoped she would take over the running of it,” says Wood. After graduating, Williams worked for Tidmarsh, a well-known agriculture scientist who was studying the genetics of red grass (Themeda triandra), and went on field trips with Acocks, a famous vegetation scientist.

Williams was a strong believer in education and an avid reader. Before passing away in July 2014, she even had plans to further her studies. “In the end she decided that her maths would not be up to current standards – having matriculated 40 years before,” says Wood.

In 1958 Williams settled down, started a family and focused on one of her other passions – animal rights. Now, the “crusader for animal rights” was able to use the knowledge she had gained from her studies. “Mom showed that there was more to life than fame and never wanted to be recognised or get any reward. She just wanted to make a difference on the ground,” says Wood.

Williams served on the committee of the Animal Welfare Society for ten years, was one of first trustees of Beauty without Cruelty and helped to launch both the Dolphin Action and Protection Group and the South African Association against Painful Experiments on Animals. She also served for a period as the chairman of the board for the Western Cape SPCA.

It runs in the family

Williams had three children and expected them all to go to university. Wood says: “My sister and brother both studied in the Faculty of Humanities at UCT – both obtaining their PhDs – and are now professors. My sister is in the English department at the University of Fort Hare and my brother is dean of the Essex Business School in the UK.”

Wood, being very close to her mother, followed in her footsteps. She studied zoology and botany at UCT and feels that there are far more opportunities for women now than there were before. “Currently access to higher education issues don’t have as much to do with gender but other issues which are also valid,” says Wood.

Wood’s first love is biodiversity conservation, and she enjoys being able to make a difference in the conservation field by contributing to securing and expanding South Africa’s conservation estate for the future. Although her mom was unhappy that she didn’t follow suit and go into animal rights, she feels that her link with animal rights is evident in the conflict animal programmes she currently runs. “At the end of the day no matter what wildlife I manage, it needs to be as humane as possible,” she says.

Wood has two sons, Eric and Thomas, who have also taken a keen interest in science. Thomas received a special award at the Eskom Regional Science Expo in 2015. “He was 12 at the time and was awarded a special award by the UCT Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price, and also won a gold award,” says Wood.

Her shark-loving nine-year-old, Eric, wants to channel his passion for nature and ecology into becoming a marine biologist. “He is also very aware of current conservation issues and has inherited my mom’s animal rights sentiments,” says Wood.

Perhaps Myfanwy Williams’ outlook can be captured by one of her favourite sayings, coined by Mahatma Gandhi: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”.

Story Chido Mbambe. Photos supplied.

An inaugural African Sustainability Leadership Programme (ASL) recently brought together 20 East African business leaders to encourage corporates to play their part in implementing the sustainability agenda. The goal is to insert sustainable development goals into Africa’s development conversation.

Assoc Prof Richard Calland, from the Department of Public Law, is co-convenor of the African Sustainability Leadership Programme.

The programme was developed within the newly launched Centre for Sustainability Leadership at Strathmore University, Kenya, in partnership with UCT and Cambridge University.

Co-convenor Associate Professor Richard Calland, from UCT’s Department of Public Law, explains: “We strongly believe that, above all else, the sustainability problem has been caused by a lack of leadership. We equally strongly believe that at the core of the solution lies leadership.”

Also participating in the programme was Anton Cartwright, from UCT’s African Centre for Cities, who helped facilitate discussions on topics that ranged from the role of finance and investment to case studies in change management.

People with influence

The inaugural ASL programme targets business leaders in sectors ranging from fast-moving consumer goods, banking and telecommunication to manufacturing industries in East Africa. It is aimed at leaders who have the power to take action within their sphere of influence.

It is also aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which require the private sector, civil society and government to meet targets set over the next 15 years. The SDGs are aimed at ending poverty, protecting the planet and ensuring prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda.

The event in Nairobi, from 21 to 23 March 2016, drew in representatives from the likes of Unilever, Safaricom, Deloitte, the UN Global Compact Kenya and the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

Women work in a field in Kenya as part of a project aimed at small farmers. Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing East Africa. Image courtesy of Annie Bungeroth/CAFOD via Flickr Creative Commons.

Climate change on the agenda

Underpinning the programme is climate change, the “greatest threat to sustainable development of our times,” according to Calland. “It is a challenge of unprecedented scale, urgency and complexity.”

In his view, however, there is cause for optimism. The latter half of 2015 saw several international agreements that are needed for collective action. These included:

• the financing for development framework, debated in Addis Ababa in July
• the finalisation of 17 new United Nations SDGs in New York in September
• a commitment to investing in sustainable infrastructure at the G20 meeting in Istanbul in October
• the legally binding agreement reached at the climate summit (COP21) in Paris, France, in December.

However, to give impetus to these agreements, leaders need support and information.

Calland says: “They need to be armed with the relevant knowledge and information – both about the nature and character of the problem, and also about solutions.

“All around the world, inspiring case studies can be found that reveal how ‘business unusual’ can not only shift the development pathway towards a far more sustainable and resilient course, but can create new opportunities.

“This is not about philanthropy (or ‘social responsibility’) in the old sense of the concept. It is about putting sustainability at the heart of business, not because it is the right thing to do (though it is), but because it is the intelligent thing to do.”

* A follow-up session takes place in Nairobi in November 2016 and targets middle and senior leaders in business, government and civil society.

Story Andrea Weiss. Photos Michael Hammond / supplied.

It might have been the first day of the weekend, but thousands of prospective students descended on UCT’s upper campus to sink their teeth into the university’s annual Open Day on 16 April 2016.

Headline act: Science is fun, especially when ancient skulls are involved, as this Open Day visitor seemed to confirm.

Faculties set out their stalls and the high-schoolers sampled the courses that caught their eye. Staff and senior UCT students were on hand to guide their prospective colleagues through the finer details of each study programme, where to get the best lunch and how cool the view from Jameson Steps is at night.

“Open Day is the one opportunity annually where prospective undergraduate students and their parents are able to interact with staff and students from across all faculties and academic departments, and from the many departments that work in support of our students,” says Carl Herman, director of UCT’s Admissions Office.

Apply online to UCT via the admissions portal, where you will also notice the closing dates for all applications; find all the funding details here; and wrap your head around niggling questions by checking out some frequently asked questions.

Story Yusuf Omar. Photo Stephen Cruickshank.

Agnes Mbonyiryivuze and Greg Jackson represent the developing generation of leading scientists and researchers in physics. When they attend the 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in June, they will become part of a network of excellence and ambassadors of the scientific dialogue that is fostered at these annual gatherings.

The Lindau Nobel Laureate meetings began in 1951 as a valuable opportunity for young scientists to meet Nobel Laureates in order to seek their advice, to exchange thoughts and views and to discuss current developments in science and beyond.

This year’s meeting is dedicated to the field of physics. The opportunity to join the annual gathering of Nobel Laureates is provided exclusively to outstanding young scientists under the age of 35.

Agnes Mbonyiryivuze

Mbonyiryivuze has had a strong interest in science since her high school days and she now holds a BSc(Hons) in physics with education, and qualified teacher status, from the University of Rwanda College of Education and an MSc in physics from UNISA. Her aim in the physics field is to become a pioneer who will make a difference.

“As a woman, I am interested in physics to motivate other women to go for sciences as they were taken as male subjects,” says Mbonyiryivuze.

Under the supervision of Professor Andy Buffler, Mbonyiryivuze is currently completing her PhD on “developing students’” understanding of spectroscopic data in the senior physics teaching laboratory.

“My PhD has been a great learning experience so far. The thing about research that I love the most is the freedom and opportunity I get to learn new things every day,” she says.

She hopes her research will contribute to the transformation of science teaching, especially physics, from low secondary to tertiary level, as there is an imperative need to demonstrate and facilitate the teaching and learning process.

Due to the under representation of women in sciences, Mbonyiryivuze plans to continue with her academic career after completing her PhD. “Communities can create an environment of encouragement that can disrupt negative stereotypes about women’s capacity in these demanding fields,” she says. “There is a need for women in sciences. … We must be role models for other women.”

Mbonyiryivuze believes that supporting the development of girls’ confidence in their ability to learn maths and science will motivate their interest in these fields. “Women’s educational progress should be celebrated, but more work is needed to ensure that women and girls have full access to educational and employment opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” she says.

“I am very excited about meeting Nobel Laureates in person. … There will be many exciting discussions about science. I hope to learn about all the awesome research happening in the world, to make friends and bring memories that I will cherish all my life,” says Mbonyiryivuze.

Her key to success has been hard work and dedication. “Don’t let anyone intimidate or discourage you from doing science or physics. By having self-confidence and working hard you achieve anything,” she says.

“Apart from studying, I am a fellow and a member of the Organisation for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD )*, as well as a member of the Rwandan Association for Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics,” says Agnes.

Greg Jackson

Jackson is currently completing the second year of his master’s in the UCT Physics Department under the supervision of Professor André Peshier.

“My present focus is on quantum chromodynamics at high temperatures, where the degrees of freedom are expected to reflect that of a plasma state,” explains Jackson. “This phase of matter is relevant for the early universe (up to a few microseconds) and has been recreated in experiments such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and Large Hadron Collider.”

His research choice dates back to his school interest in maths Olympiads. Jackson, who enjoys solving problems and puzzles, came to UCT with the intention of pursuing pure maths.

“I had hoped I’d get into UCT because from doing maths Olympiads at school I’d already developed relationships in the UCT maths circle, which is a weekly class where you can come learn things that aren’t part of the school syllabus,” he explains. “When I came to UCT … I discovered physics on the way and gained interest and ended up where I am now.”

Greg applied for the Nobel Laureates Meeting after his supervisor recommended it.

“The 66th Lindau meeting is a fantastic opportunity for me, not only for exposure to a very broad range of physics topics, but also to meet new people and exchange ideas,” says Jackson.

He looks forward to meeting experts in his field, like David Gross – one of the pioneers of the strong nuclear force. “It would be really nice if I could chat to him. I’m also quite excited because the topics are going to be broad – it’s not just focused on my area of physics,” says Jackson.

Although still undecided about pursuing an academic career after completing his master’s, he would like to pursue a PhD. “It’s another challenge I’m up to,” says Jackson. “I’m sure the Lindau opportunity will make a big impact in that regard.”

Jackson’s key to success has been learning from others. “Ask questions,” he says. “It’s one of the most important things in science – you don’t learn by taking for granted what's in the book, you have to question almost everything.”

* OWSD was founded in 1987 and is the first international forum to unite women scientists from the developing and developed worlds with the objective of strengthening their role in the development process and promoting their representation in scientific and technological leadership.

Story Chido Mbambe. Photos Je’nine May.

Urban agriculture is widely promoted as the solution to the growing problem of urban food insecurity in South Africa and in Africa more broadly. It is said to provide livelihoods and social cohesion, and have environmental benefits. But it’s also promoted as having additional food security benefits.

Food security efforts need to look beyond urban agriculture. Photo by CIAT.

It is the primary, and usually the only, food security policy of local governments, and the focus of many NGOs and corporate social investment programmes.

There is, however, very little evidence to support this level of investment and focus.

It is thus important to critically assess whether the promotion of urban agriculture is warranted, particularly when it is at the expense of other potential solutions. We simply cannot afford to keep polishing the lamp and hoping the genie will appear.

Research shows something else

Proponents of urban agriculture offer figures suggesting that as many as 40% of African urban residents are involved in some form of agriculture. Such figures require far greater interrogation. In the case of Cape Town in South Africa, research conducted in low-income areas of the city in 2008 found that less than 5% of poor residents were involved in any form of urban agriculture. In reality, those most active in urban agriculture were found to be wealthier people in low-income areas.

Context is a further determining factor. Research shows that in towns where the municipal boundary extended into areas with more rural characteristics, urban agriculture was higher.

In South Africa this finding is supported by the 2011 census, which identified more than 30% of the population practising urban agriculture in medium-sized towns like Mafikeng, Polokwane and Newcastle. In Mogale City and Johannesburg, larger settlements with large urban settlements adjacent, the practice was well below 10%. And in Cape Town it was below 5%. Context, climate, soil fertility and spatial legacies all matter.

There is little evidence to suggest urban agriculture is contributing to food and nutrition security, either locally or internationally. The incomes from sales of produce are generally low, so the indirect food security benefits are limited.

Assumptions without evidence

The assumption in much advocacy work and policy is that urban agriculture benefits the most food-insecure households. But numerous case studies show this is not the case.

Two themes are implicit in motivations for urban agriculture. The first is welfare driven. The second is a narrative that calls for self-help interventions so that the poor initiate their own food security through urban agriculture. This assumes free time for the under-employed poor, who pursue multiple strategies to survive.

Linked to this is the assumption that the food insecure can get access to land, water, seeds and everything else they need. This misses the reality of poverty. State and NGO programmes do facilitate access to such resources, but the most vulnerable lack the knowledge or social networks to access these.

Urban agriculture is often promoted as a means of empowerment. But expecting the urban poor, who have the least access to resources, to grow their own and lift themselves out of poverty and food insecurity fails to recognise the barriers constraining urban agriculture. That isn’t empowerment; it’s the cruelty of false promises.

So where does the dogged pursuit of urban agriculture as the solution come from?

1. Local governments have no direct food security mandate, as food insecurity is still considered by most states to be primarily a rural problem. This means local governments wishing to address food insecurity adapt rural programmes to meet urban needs.

2. Food insecurity is seen as a household poverty problem and not a systemic problem. The obvious household response is food production.

3. The state is largely unwilling to address the systemic drivers of food insecurity, which would entail regulating food companies and challenging the dominant development agenda.

Looked at in this light it is possible to view the increased promotion of urban agriculture as a politically reactionary response. It claims to be aimed at fixing the worst effects of structural poverty and food insecurity. But it doesn’t actually address the root causes.

Changes that need to be made

For as long as urban agriculture remains local government’s main entry point for addressing food insecurity, it is essential that programming be improved.

First, more effort needs to made in monitoring and evaluation of government-run initiatives. Though inputs are monitored well, outputs and impact monitoring are extremely weak. This means many programmes are failing and lessons are not being learnt.

Second, many NGOs working in urban agriculture have sustainable, viable projects. Local government should work more directly with these to increase the viability of state-initiated projects.

And if urban agriculture is to be a main focus area for food security programming, then suitable land should be identified and protected.

But urban food security efforts need to look beyond urban agriculture. For example, it is essential that local governments understand the food system in which urban agriculture operates to understand why producers struggle to find markets for their goods. This would allow them to develop a range of interventions based on their existing mandates, including integrating formal and informal food retailing spaces, and supporting fresh produce markets to increase their role in local, pro-poor food value chains.

Finally, local governments should develop food security strategies to guide their interventions. Through these measures, urban agriculture can remain integral to efforts to alleviate food insecurity and would be more likely to have the desired impact.

It is clear that urban agriculture can have significant benefits for some participating households. But we are concerned about the absence of wider evidence supporting its potential to address food insecurity beyond those households. The assertion that urban agriculture can provoke systemic change is untested. Through their dogged promotion of urban agriculture, the state and the private sector can claim they are working towards food insecurity and have a good photo op with key personnel in wellington boots. At the same time they can absolve themselves from responsibility for the causes of food insecurity.

By Gareth Haysom, Researcher at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town and Jane Battersby, Senior Researcher in Urban Food Security and Food Systems, University of Cape Town

Disclosure statement: Gareth Haysom received funding from from CIDA (AFSUN Programme) and currently receives funding from the ESRC/DFID (Consuming Urban Poverty Project) and IDRC (Hungry Cities Partnership programme). Jane Battersby has received funding from CIDA (AFSUN Programme) and FORMAS (Ways of Knowing Urban Ecology Project). She currently receives funding from the ESRC/DFID (Consuming Urban Poverty Project).

A Task Team on Statues, Plaques and Artworks was set up in September 2015 to make recommendations to the UCT Council.

Its terms of reference are:

“To conduct or commission an audit, assessment, and analysis of statues, plaques and artworks on campus that may be seen to recognize or celebrate colonial oppressors and/or which may be offensive or controversial;

To seek comment and opinion from members of the University and other interested and affected parties on these issues,

 and do this with inclusivity and the University’s location in an African context as the basis of its work.”

The role of the Task Team has been misrepresented in the press and conflated with the actions of others. The Task Team wishes to clarify its position.

In March 2016, the Task Team was requested by the Vice Chancellor to report on its progress. He asked the Team also to take discussion and comment on its progress at the University Senate. The Team did this.

The University then took an executive decision regarding the removal of artworks on campus which the VC communicated to the University in a statement on 11 April 2016.

As the Terms of Reference make clear the Task Team has no authority to endorse statements by others, take decisions, be part of the taking of decisions, or to implement anything. It can do only one thing: elicit comment, make recommendations and report them to Council.

At the end of the statement the names of the Task Team members were listed for information purposes. It is possible that some people think this list is an endorsement of the statement. It is for information only. The Task Team has asked for the names to be moved onto its interim statement for the sake of clarity.

The Vice-Chancellor’s statement mentions the development of curatorial policy. The Works of Art Committee is the body responsible for the development of policy for artworks.

Read more:

• Update on engagement and discussion around the display of art on campus

There has been a sea change in the biodiversity business. International and national laws now oblige companies and researchers to “do the right thing”. Indigenous people and local communities must be included as beneficiaries in ventures exploiting their knowledge or resources.

Harvesting rooibos in South Africa?s Suid Bokkeveld. Paul Weinberg, Author provided.

Communities must give their consent before any bioprospecting – exploring biodiversity for valuable genes and biochemicals. And there must be conservation benefits.

But what does this means in practice? The evidence is ambivalent, raising questions about who “qualifies” for benefits and “who was first” in claiming knowledge ownership. There are also questions about how to regulate these “access and benefit-sharing” arrangements without creating an unwieldy bureaucracy.

In South Africa significant progress has been made to develop workable models of benefit sharing. But, as is the case in many countries, major challenges prevent access and benefit sharing from adding up to social justice.

How Hoodia paved the way

Perhaps the most famous case involves the succulent plant Hoodia. It has long been used by the indigenous San people, the oldest and most marginalised inhabitants in Africa, to stave off hunger and thirst. Active ingredients of the plant were patented by South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Lucrative deals were also signed to develop anti-obesity products.

This was done without the consent or knowledge of San communities, despite being based on their traditional knowledge. The research council was subsequently forced to negotiate with the South African San Council, leading to a benefit-sharing agreement in 2003.

Although Hoodia was later abandoned as a commercial product due to safety and efficacy concerns, the case has been precedent setting. San communities claim to be primary traditional knowledge holders of all southern African biodiversity. As such, they are now at the front line of many access and benefit-sharing deals in the region. This has paid rich dividends.

For example, Sceletium tortuosum or kanna, a succulent plant well known for its mood-enhancing properties, is the subject of an agreement between HG&H Pharmaceuticals and the South African San Council. This has led to South Africa registering its first International Certificate of Compliance under the Nagoya Protocol.

An agreement between the South African San Council, the National Khoisan Council and a local pharmaceutical company, Cape Kingdom Nutraceuticals, gives San and Khoi communities 3% of the profits from products using buchu. The essential oil from buchu is widely used in international flavour and fragrant industries.

A third agreement, founded on the back of the highly successful rooibos tea industry, involves the San Council in an agreement with Nestlé, based on the development of a novel tea product.

Still cause for concern

But amid this optimism there is cause for concern. The San have a long history of dispossession, persecution and relocation. Most live in remote, arid environments, eking out a living through agriculture, livestock, wage labour and the harvesting of plants. They often don’t have rights or traditional claim to the land they work.

Introducing huge sums of money into these communities could be potentially catastrophic. Their wide dispersion across remote parts makes the situation particularly fraught. Ensuring the equitable distribution of funds is a hard task.

A further complication is that several groups hold traditional knowledge about the same plants to which San communities lay claim. Almost all of such groups have, to varying degrees, the San as their forebears. The most significant of these include Khoi communities. Originally pastoralists, they are today often urbanised and more and more politicised.

Although absent from Hoodia negotiations, the National Khoisan Council has increasingly become a partner to various benefit-sharing agreements. It was established by former President Nelson Mandela to accommodate historical leadership of Khoi and San within the South African constitutional framework.

What this means in practice is ambiguous, and is often embroiled in the politics of identity and representation. There is a lack of clarity about who exactly “qualifies” as being San or Khoi, and a concern that benefits will flow only to an elite leadership.

In some cases, such as for the kanna plant, San have involved other groups in benefit-sharing arrangements. This was because initial research took place with traditional healers of the indigenous Nama community. But there are many communities who have customary rights and ownership over plant resources yet do not necessarily identify themselves as “indigenous”. Whose knowledge counts under such circumstances?

Cederberg in the Western Cape, for example, includes some of the only areas where buchu and rooibos grow naturally and are wild-harvested. The communities are typically mixed-race descendants of settlers, former slaves and Khoi people. The harvesting and use of these plants have formed a central part of their livelihoods and cultures for decades.

Most of these harvesters and small-scale farmers remain completely unaware of the access and benefit-sharing regulations that protect their rights. Yet they are often traditional knowledge holders.

They also do not easily associate themselves with San and Khoi political structures.

A South African natural products industry that remains largely untransformed, with racially skewed white ownership, aggravates this. So too does the global landscape which is often monopolised by a handful of large corporations.

Broader vision needed

More regulation does not necessarily help. Government approaches have been highly managerial, working in silos and territorial of their individual mandates. Insufficient human capacity, limited community experience and poor knowledge of bioprospecting mar regulators dealing with access and benefit sharing – despite good intentions.

A persistent backdrop is the politically charged nature of bioprospecting and the oft-competing directives to commoditise biodiversity and traditional knowledge. The concern, borne out in South Africa, is that governments entangle themselves in unworkable laws and adopt a “tick-box approach”. This aims to ensure regulatory compliance rather than social justice and economic development.

Such experiences provide rich lessons for implementation of international agreements like the Nagoya Protocol, as well as wider initiatives aiming to reduce societal inequalities.

Importantly, they emphasise that establishing greater benefits for indigenous people and local communities is essential. But this won’t be achieved by access and benefit sharing alone. Equal attention should be given to:

• building the long-term financial and technical capacity of communities to engage in commercialisation;
• transferring technology to African countries;
• adding value to raw material;
• facilitating market access; and
• interrogating the unequal power relations of African natural product value chains.

Realising such changes will not be possible without securing rights to the resources, knowledge and land that have been alienated over centuries. Also to be considered are the broader threats causing rampant loss of biodiversity and culture. These include mining and industrial agriculture. Greater integration of these issues is vital if the objectives of achieving equity, conservation and economic development are to be achieved.

Rachel Wynberg, Associate Professor and DST/NRF Bio-economy Research Chair, University of Cape Town.

The governing African National Congress manifesto for South Africa’s first democratic election that ended apartheid in 1994 pledged to deliver "a democratic society based on equality, nonracialism and nonsexism [and] an economy which grows through providing jobs, housing and education".

Freedom Day celebrations at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Photo by GCIS

But as this year’s Freedom Day celebrations approach, the latest survey by a non-partisan research group suggests the country still has a long way to go in fulfilling these promises. Freedom Day is a public holiday marking the day on which the country held its first democratic elections. The survey was conducted in August-September 2015 by Afrobarometer, a research network that conducts public attitude surveys across the continent.

On the positive side, South Africans remain optimistic about overcoming historical racial divisions and promoting social cohesion and national unity.

Pessimism over economic conditions

Almost two-thirds (64%) of South Africans say the country is heading in the wrong direction overall. This is up from less than half (46%) in the previous survey in 2011. This reflects growing discontent with the state of the national economy and leadership.

Analysis of the data over time shows that public perceptions of the economy generally mirror objective performance measures. More than half the respondents in the 2015 survey rate the country’s economic conditions as “fairly bad” or “very bad”. This is almost double the negative sentiments during the boom years of 2004 and 2006.

Figure 1: Negative ratings of national and personal economic conditions, 2000-2015.

Citizens are also more disapproving of the country’s current system of government, although they continue to rate it more highly than the apartheid regime.

Worryingly, optimism about the future has significantly declined since 2011.

Figure 2: Average ratings of political system by race, 2015.

Analysis of this measure over time shows that South Africans of all races were increasingly optimistic about the future between 2000 and 2006. This took a plunge following the electricity and political crises of 2008, before recovering in 2011.

Pervasive disappointment

A majority of respondents say that the country has failed to advance on a range of socioeconomic indicators. These include:

• personal safety;
• economic circumstances;
• employment opportunities;
• racial relations; and
• disparities between rich and poor.

On average, fewer than four in ten (37%) believe that these conditions are “better” or “much better” than in 1994. Nearly a quarter say they are the same and 38% say that they have deteriorated. The largest proportion (52%) of respondents see an improvement in race relations. Only 17% say that the gap between the rich and poor is “better” or “much better” since 1994.  

Figure 3: Changes in socioeconomic conditions from 1994-2015.

This dissatisfaction is reflected in negative views of government performance in managing the economy. It is doing “very badly” or “fairly badly”, according to 66% of respondents. Other negative scores are: creating jobs (77%), reducing crime (77%), and narrowing the gaps between rich and poor (78%). On the positive side, six in ten (61%) give the government positive evaluations on uniting all South Africans into one nation.

Material security still determined by race

Government development plans have focused on redressing racial inequalities. These aim to improve most South Africans’ socioeconomic conditions. But Afrobarometer data show that access to basic necessities (food, clean water, medical treatment, cooking fuel and a cash income) differs substantially by race, location and education.

Figure 4: Respondents who ‘never’ went without basic necessities in the previous year, by demographic and social indicators, 2015.

Despite the introduction of social welfare and affirmative action programmes aimed at redressing the apartheid legacy, black South Africans continue to enjoy significantly lower levels of material security than other race groups. Since 2000, on average, only two in ten (23%) black respondents have said they “never” went without basic necessities in the previous year, compared with 47% of coloured, 65% of Indian and 74% of white respondents. In South Africa, the term “coloured” refers to people of mixed descent, while “Indian” refers to people of South Asian origin.

Public discontent with progress since 1994 is concerning, given national objectives to achieve an inclusive, united society by 2030.

Slightly more than half of South Africans believe that race relations have improved. But the proportion of citizens from minority race groups who believe that the government “always” or “often” discriminates against their ethnic group has increased considerably since 2011. Furthermore, majorities of all South Africans say the courts and employers regularly discriminate against people based on their race, while more than one-third say the same about landlords.

Figure 5: Perceptions of frequent racial discrimination, 2015.

The national furore over a Durban realtor’s Facebook post in early January characterising black beach-goers as “monkeys” was a stark reminder of how far South Africa still has to go before achieving racial harmony. But survey findings on national identity and social cohesion are more encouraging: South Africans of all races identify strongly with being South African and large majorities believe that national unity is both desirable (87%) and possible (83%).

By Rorisang Lekalake, Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences Research (CSSR) / Afrobarometer Assistant Project Manager for Southern Africa, University of Cape Town.

Disclosure statement: Rorisang Lekalake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Celebrate Freedom Day by hiking to the block house, riding a bike to campus, taking part in a clothing swap or attending a talk focusing on how you can take action to live more sustainably.

These are among the activities planned for Green Week – the annual UCT Green Campus Initiative (GCI) which is aimed at raising awareness around sustainability on campus.

GCI is a volunteer organisation that was started by a handful of staff and students in 2007. The university has also been a member of the International Sustainable Campus Network since 2011 and, as such, has made a commitment to more sustainable practices.

Another initiative scheduled for this week is a plan to to find out what is preventing students from cycling to campus by asking them to fill in a survey. GCI is currently working on a new rental proposal for the Jammie bikes to encourage their use on and around campus.

For the full Green Week programme, which runs from 25 to 29 April 2016, visit the GCI Facebook page.