IN good part the idea of the Economic Modelling Academy (EMA), launched on Thursday, was inspired by the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation Dialogue Among Equals, colloquially known as the Drakensberg Inclusive Growth Forum. We are indebted to you President Motlanthe for this vision.
The Economic Modelling Academy has a profound acronym, Ema. In the Sesotho languages Ema carries paradoxical meanings. It means stop, and it also means stand or rise. Depending on your station in life, the word advises appropriately with a profound philosophical advice on reflection.
It is not coincidental that Ema has its acronym as this paradox, for indeed, in South Africa and the world we need to stop before we think of rising. We need to ema.
Monts'oane
A serious reset is necessary in the aftermath of a devastating pandemic, in the face of galloping technology inspiring big data, artificial intelligence, the internet of things and robotics.
A new economy in the making: defining a different future of work and as well as emerging social relations, which could be deeply flawed if we do not rethink and redesign our economic policies globally and in South Africa.
For in South Africa there is the wicked triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment, which especially afflicts the future that is our youth, have been enjoined with the burden of corruption, fire and floods.
In order to rescue ourselves from wanton abandon from ourselves we have all agreed that what we need is a capable state. Such is possible when we indulge in real action towards a capable state. How do we build a capable state? It is built on tools of foresight that anticipate the future.
Karl Marx advises us to disabuse ourselves of the dwarf-like character, a stand alone invention so to say. My rendition is a metaphor of the dwarf-like character we need to rid ourselves of.
The matter for a capable state in my village, of Patisi i Lesotho, is about where knowing where to lay the ropes of rescue when a drowning person is swept off by the river called Monts'oane. But it is also placing preventative measures by understanding the cloud formation and crossing the river well ahead of a downpour. The deep ropes of rescue are laid down stream and around a place where a river curves and the water can flush off the drowning individual towards the banks where then they can catch the ropes thrown at them by the rescuing team.
Ema is building both a rescue team downstream for our country in danger of drowning. But more importantly it is building a preventative bridge across the river so that the river can flow as it should and people should commune as they should, thus creating an ecosystem that is predictably harmonious.
On my part 30 years ago, worried by a Satswa Option that was proposed by Bophuthatswana where I was head of statistics I sought solutions with my colleagues to what was a continuation of the spatial conundrum for South Africa. I met Professor Herman Geyer of Potchefstroom University and asked hum why he was not teaching regional science to statisticians.
Geyer is not new to South Africa and has since the 1990s been immersed in South Africa’s economic systems and requirements as a lead researcher for the macro-economic research group (Merg) before being a lead economic modeller at Applied Development Research Solutions (ADRS) based in California, US.
Of note, Statistics SA with Geyer in 2010 established from StatsSA the Centre for Regional and Urban Innovation and Statistical Exploration (Cruise) at the University of Stellenbosch in 2010.
Reconnecting with Adalzadeh was Geyer de javu. This was prompted by my owncontinuinig frustration that the statistics were not used in planning and we needed tools to influence policy design that rely on evidence. My research led to ADRS. While I didn’t succeed when I was in government to realise and resolve this monumental frustration, I had the time to continue with Adalzadeh to find ways of resolving this permanent dilemma.
Zigzagging through Indlulamithi Scenarios where the scenarios were quantified and showed the clear path through which South Africa was going, we are convinced that what South Africa needed was building capacity in the bureaucracy, civil society, private sector and ordinary citizens in order to take up the discussions and advocacy for economic policy, thus creating the possibilities for a future that is managed and different from the precipice we face.
Ema now provides the ropes held by a rescue crew downstream where the river curves waiting for a drowning victim from upstream. But more importantly, Ema is a place where journeymen and journey-women are tooled cohort after cohort for defining a different South Africa and Africa that can be in the service of implementing Agenda the 2063 and Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement.
To end, we need to heed Karl Marx on how technology works. Karl Marx captures it well when he says if a machine is retaining a dwarf-like character retaining machine hampers progress.
He says: “Just as the individual machine retains a dwarf-like character as long as it is worked by the power of man alone, and just as no system of machinery could be properly developed before the steam-engine took the place of earlier motive powers …so too large-scale industry was crippled in its whole development as long as its characteristic instrument of production, the machine, owed its existence to personal strength and personal skill, and depended on the muscular development, the keenness of sight and the manual dexterity with which the specialised workers, in manufacture, and the handicraftsmen outside manufacture, wielded their dwarf-like implements.”
In Ema we are creating the needed collaboration and ridding ourselves of a machine retaining a dwarf-like character.
Dr Pali Lehohla is a co-director of EMA, a Research Associate at Oxford, a Professor of Practice at UJ, and the former Statistician-General of South Africa. Meet him @Palilj01 and at www.pie.org.za
* This is an edited version of a speech Lehohla delivered at the launch of the EMA.
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