Statement by South Africa

Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates and friends, On behalf of the Government and people of South Africa and especially our scientific community, we wish to extend the warmest greetings to all of you. We also wish to address our sincerest congratulations to you, personally, Professor Rao, on your unanimous election to the chairmanship of Unispace III. We believe that this gesture of confidence in your person - undoubtedly inspired by your distinguished track record, has also placed the stewardship of the deliberations of Unispace III in hands as capable as any. We also wish to congratulate the members of the Bureau on their election.

Today, under the leadership of President Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki, the people of South Africa are rallying to the call of the African Renaissance. This is an immediate call to overcome the legacy of apartheid in order to free South Africa to assume its rightful place 'in the community of African nations. It is also, ultimately, a call to all of us, as a nation, to effectively participate in the unleashing of Africa's full potential to contribute significantly to all facets of the universal and historic project to create a free, prosperous, enlightened and stable future for all humanity. This is the strategic perspective that frames our approach to the theme of Unispace III.

We also proceed from several fundamental assumptions - all shaped or informed by experience. Firstly, we believe that - all other things being equal, there is a positive correlation between advances in the sciences and engineering and human progress and well being. Secondly, foresight studies have convinced us that, as we approach the dawn of the new millennium, decisive advantage will reside in the hands of those who cultivate or acquire strong competencies and/or capabilities in the information and communication sciences, the bio-sciences, the material sciences and the space sciences. Thirdly, we believe that, with regard to cost and benefit, the sciences and engineering are best pursued in cooperation as opposed to isolated efforts - no matter how well intentioned the latter may be. We also believe that, consciously driven by values that affirm all humanity, advances in the sciences and engineering can make a significant contribution to the narrowing of the gap between the " have's " and " have-nots without compromising overall human progress. It is with this mindset that we join in the exchange of views at this auspicious gathering.

South Africa is an African country. Give or take a difference of degree here or there, the problems we face are not untypical of the problems that our sister countries in other parts of the African continent have to deal with - including, especially, the urgent need to overcome the triple scourge of poverty, disease and ignorance on a sustainable basis.

Mr Chairman,

In South Africa, as in many other countries, the rate of population growth is only matched - if not outstripped, by the rate at which the natural resources base is shrinking. This problem is compounded by the continued decline in the prices of primary commodities - the price of gold being the most recent example. The pursuit of sustainable development has, therefore, literally, become an increasingly urgent race against time and material resources. It is a race which we must either win or face the prospect of mounting social instability, political disorder and the erosion of efforts to build and consolidate freedom and democracy. However, in order to win this race, we must find ways to do the most with the least; we mustalso find the means to do so with ever increasing rapidity without, at the same time, doing injury to the environment. In this regard, it is highly instructive that an increasing number of the leading economies of the world are steadily shifting away from raw materialintensity to knowledge-richness in order to build or retain competitive advantage. These are economies whose societies are, inter alia, characterised by high levels of human capital development - most notably, in the natural sciences and engineering. These are societies which, in turn, are leaders or are seeking leadership in one or more of the cutting edge sciences and engineering domains such as the space sciences. If nothing else, the experience of these societies strongly suggests that the key to winning the race to achieve sustainable development and economic growth must lie in significant and dedicated efforts to develop human capital in the relevant sciences and engineering disciplines. As virtually every speaker before us has asserted, these must include those domains of knowledge whose development is driven by insights derived from the systematic exploration of space and their translation into peaceful applications.

In the opening adresses, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan , President Klestil of the Federal Republic of Austria and the Chairman, Dr. Rao variously but pointedly stressed the importance of applying space technology for the real advancement of the developing world and the consequent need to share the relevant know-how with developing nations.

Over the years, South Africa has made significant strides in several areas of space applications where it now plays an increasingly significant role.
These include:

• the ability to provide reliable launch and orbital support, from South African soil, for international space agencies and satellite operators,

• the compilation and maintenance of an up to date database of imagery spanning more than 25 years and covering the whole of Africa and neighbouring islands from 5 degrees South of the equator which is used for various applications,

• the acquisition of a significant capability to use satellite based communications services, as well as the local development of communications applications.,

Though our achievements are not inconsiderable, we readily admit that, in several ways, they may be relatively modest by international standards. Also, there are still many areas in which we have yet to either deepen our capabilities or grow or acquire new and important learning. However, we also believe that we have built a viable platform of competencies and capabilities that has equipped us with the critical mass to build the necessary strengths to enable us to become an even more significant player in the domain of space research and it applications. However, in order to make progress in this direction, it will be of utmost importance for us to cooperate with and learn from leaders in the various fields of the exploration of space for peaceful purposes. On the other hand, we could, in the spirit of partnership with our sister countries and under appropriate circumstances - including adequate levels of the right kinds of support, make available our relative strengths and/or advantages in order to help leverage the diffusion of the requisite space science competencies and applications across our region and into other parts of the African continent. This would be a logical extension of South Africa's commitment to working hand-in-hand with her neighbours in southern Africa and across the African continent to seek solutions to common problems in the pursuit of progress. Towards this end, the exponential growth in the commercialisation of space should create opportunities for partnerships between the public and private sectors to implement or give further growth to space projects, in South and southern Africa, such as:  

• building on the successful development, launch and operation of SUNSAT and optimising existing human capital and creativity and giving greater depth and broader scope to current training initiatives,

• giving further impetus to the investigation of the feasibility of a domestic communications satellite project which is currently under way.

• making earth observation data accessible to users in Southern Africa  and the rest of the continent.

With respect to the potential of satellite applications to contribute to sustainable development, we would go so far as to assert that the demand for satellite applications in South and southern Africa will grow dramatically well into the next millennium. The basic space applications - particularly as they relate to broadcasting and telecommunications, will continue to play an extremely important role in the provision of services, especially to the almost invariably under-serviced rural areas. In this respect, one of the crucial challenges is to develop applications that will make the provision of telecommunications to those areas more affordable. One possible way to do this could be to develop satellite applications for whichthe cost of manufacture and provision can be significantly off-set by economies of scale. We believe this is eminently worth investigating.

In conclusion we would like to highlight the fact that this is the first time that South Africa has been represented by an official team in a conference organised by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. By way of celebrating this fact which is for us truly historic, we wish to assure you all that South Africa subscribes profoundly to the ideal which inspired the founding of the Committee in the first place.

Thank you for your attention.