SAKAN Partners: World

South Africa has a very long history of cooperation with virtually all the world’s nations and regions. SAKAN will examine selected examples of such cooperation and collaboration with the objective of developing an opinion of the underlying causes of success or failure of these selected case studies, learning from these opinions and perceptions, and building such knowledge into the SAKAN initiative. The following list is a small starting point for further focused research. Lessons from this research will be derived, successes emulated, and failures used to improve SAKAN’s understanding of the very wide range of complexities of programmes aimed at ameliorating complex challenges such as inequality, poverty and unemployment. The wide range of SAKAN partners visualized, those that establish direct collaborative relations with the SAKAN initiative, and those that function independently of it, will all benefit from the insights and knowledge published in this open access SAKAN document and knowledge repository.

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The search for Global SAKAN Partners.
World FlagEurope: South Africa has deep historical relationships with most member states of the European Union (EU), especially its technology sector. Numerous partnerships have been established in the past, but none have succeeded in reducing the extreme disparities that threaten the nation’s growth with social stability. For example, the well-resourced Finland/South Africa (COFISA) funded “Dwesa Village Connection Business Modeling and Feasibility Study”, and its academic location in “The Siyakhula Living Lab” provides a classic case study of the significant effort and failure by South Africa and its international partners in trying to connect its unconnected rural communities. The SAKAN initiative will re-examine both the strategy and partnership with the objective of finding solutions for the underlying causes of failure.
Other key EU/South African partnerships include various ICT-related research activities under the auspices of the EuroAfrica-ICT Cooperation Forum in which South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) was an active partner. Numerous high-level research programmes have been implemented under this partnership programme, with few visible outcomes in the reduction of South Africa’s triple threats as the statistics in this SAKAN home page illustrate. South Africa must re-examine these partnerships and strategies with the objective of gaining an improved understanding for the design of future collaborative programmes that will result in quantifiable and highly visible progress.
Asia-Pacific Telecommunity
APT LogoThis regional organization was established in 1979 under the joint initiatives of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), comprises 38 member states in the Asia/Pacific region. This region, featuring very high ICT growth, which in turn fuels economic growth, has many similar developmental challenges to those faced by South Africa, but has forged very strong regional partnerships to ameliorate these challenges. With South Africa’s strong historical relationships with many of APT’s members (e.g. strong trade links with China and India, a 1997 Telecom Malaysia joint venture with Telkom SA), the possibility of forging new partnerships to reduce South Africa’s triple threats are excellent. As the SAKAN initiative progresses, these possibilities will be examined closely. The stated objective of the APT is "To foster the development of telecommunication services and information infrastructure throughout the region with a particular focus on the expansion thereof in less developed areas. This objective aligns closely with the South African local challenges, and with the SAKAN objective. The success of APT since its formation nearly 50-year ago suggests that partnering with APT and its members would be invaluable for this SAKAN initiative.
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The Latin American and Caribbean Region (LAC)
CELAC LogoThe 33 member Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) comprises countries with numerous similarities and challenges as South Africa: (a) Brazil and Colombia had the highest world levels of income inequality, and therefore violent crime, before being overtaken by South Africa in in the last 2-3 decades; (b) Sharing similar ICT-relevant demographic features such as population densities and large tracts of low density rural areas, and economies of the same order as South Africa. Most countries in the region have been able to achieve much higher ICT growth rates and rural penetration than South Africa; (c) Colombia in particular shares important similarities with South Africa: a similar economy, population, and population density; similarly high levels of crime and inequality; and a similar early ICT growth trajectory. The question that must be asked is how Colombia managed to control and reduce its crime and inequality levels, and secure an ICT growth that positions its fixed broadband penetration at nearly for times higher than South Africa’s in 2016?
The Latin American and Caribbean region has many developmental experiences and lessons that could help to reduce South Africa's triple threats over time. Some partnership foundations are already in place, e.g. the BRICS community which includes Brazil, but others are clearly possible and desirable. SAKAN will examine these possibilities further, and propose various levels of cooperation and collaboration consistent with the costs and complexities of establishing and maintaining such partnerships.
Besides Brazil, illustrated in the slider below, many more CELAC members have invaluable experiences that can be shared with South Africa. For example, Colombia's demographics and economy are very similar to South Africa; the two nations have shared similar inequality-fueled tumultuous histories, but Colombia progresses much faster than South Africa. How can South Africa find access to the experiences and knowledge for development acquired in recent years by Colombia and other CELAC member states?