{"id":5753,"date":"2019-10-04T10:18:18","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T07:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5753"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:35","slug":"south-africa-must-harness-technology-in-a-way-that-helps-fix-its-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/10\/04\/south-africa-must-harness-technology-in-a-way-that-helps-fix-its-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa Must Harness Technology In A Way That Helps Fix Its Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Alison Gillwald<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the three short years that the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/\">World Economic Forum (WEF<\/a>) has been punting\nthe concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) as the route to\nprosperity for digitally savvy nations, it has become global policy\nconventional wisdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">South Africa has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/politics\/2019-05-25-in-full-president-cyril-ramaphosas-inauguration-speech\/\">not\nbeen immune <\/a>to the hype. The government has shifted its focus and resources\nto the 4IR. And it\u2019s prioritised over more mundane, but essential, policy\ninterventions aimed at ensuring the more equitable inclusion of the populace\ninto a modern, digital economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This diversion of resources is not by government only.\nInternational donor agendas and funding have pivoted to the 4IR. This has\nmostly been to Artificial Intelligence (AI). In the process, critical research\non creating the necessary conditions in developing countries for inclusive\ndigital economies and societies, and implementation projects, have been left\nstranded. These would include ensuring broadband extension, affordable access,\neducation and digital skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The effect has been no public investment in independent,\nlocal multidisciplinary digital policy research. This includes 4IR. Public interest\nresearch in this area has therefore become dependent on the vagaries of donor\nfunding. It is therefore not surprising that South Africa relies on the\nblueprints of international lobbies, global industry associations and private\nfoundations representing the interests of what have become global monopolies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Various government departments have developed policies in\ntheir sectoral silos. But there is no overarching digital policy to achieve the\nco-ordination required across the state and between the public and private\nsectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dtps.gov.za\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=811:president-cyril-ramaphosa-appoints-commission-on-fourth-industrial-revolution&amp;catid=13&amp;Itemid=138\">commission\nappointed<\/a>&nbsp;by President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this year is meant to\nprovide some of this overview. Can it, with the industry-dominated working\ngroups, provide a public interest outcome? And why are the industry-led working\ngroups replicating the protracted six-year integrated White Paper process that\nhas yet to be implemented?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/south-africa-must-harness-technology-in-a-way-that-helps-fix-its-problems-121191\">Read\nmore&gt;&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Alison Gillwald In the three short years that the&nbsp;World Economic Forum (WEF) has been punting the concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) as the route to prosperity for&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}