South Africa's progress dilemma: the urgent need for better measurement
The trouble with retirement especially when you had all the administrative facilities around you is that you still act and behave as though possess the limbs that arranged your schedule, especially reminding you constantly about the next engagement.
Google Calendar goes a long way in that respect, for those who set appointments with you. But Google Calendar does not stop you from continuing to greet and talk, especially when your phone is on silent. More importantly Google Calendar will not remind you of what was not registered in your calendar.
The national dialogue has begun. If you do not believe it, my schedule last week was all about the undesirable current state of South Africa and what to do about it to pave the way for a different and better future.
Last week was a mad week. I was scheduled to be at the Auto Week 2024 Centenary Celebrations held in Cape Town to look into the prospects of the 100 days of the Government of National Unity (GNU)and what positive spin-offs that could be harvested by the motor Industry. My flight was at 2pm.
However, unexpectedly I got a call from the South African Defence Force (Sandf) checking on my whereabouts. My heart skipped a beat as I had forgotten that I was scheduled to present on the template of evidence that should contribute to design of the mission challenge of the national youth service that the Sandf is exploring.
This was initially discussed three weeks ago, but alas I had not added the meeting to my Google Calendar. The call on this mission challenge required participation of every patriot and was important. I had to immediately drop everything and go via the Waterkloof Officers Mess to make my input en route to Auto Week where I presented the next day, “GNU a window of hope or a flash in the pan: The Plight and prospects for Motor Vehicle Industry in South Africa.”
I had to fly back to GIBS where on Thursday morning there was a summit themed “Serious Social Impact” and I was asked to present on “Scenario planning on how to create pathways into the economy”. At the end of my presentation at noon I had to catch a flight back to Cape Town where Parliament held a two-day workshop that started on Thursday and I was scheduled to present on the second day.
The discussion in Parliament were in part the search of new instruments of power that focus on the pain of South Africa. To this end the choice of discussion was on Multidimensional Poverty Indicators.
Annually the Multidimensional Poverty Peer Network (MPPN) holds a global summit to discuss advances in applications and methods of Multidimensional Poverty Indicators (MPI) in policy – both social and economic. The Parliament of South Africa decided to host an exploratory roundtable discussion on the MPI. The MPI offers a vital opportunity for exchange and learning on multidimensional poverty. Experts and leading voices from governments and international agencies are tasked with this particularly in the light of an unending acceleration of inequality.
The meeting in parliament presented a unique chance to enhance capacity and foster dialogue on high-impact policies and effective strategies to alleviate poverty in all its forms using the MPI. I was, therefore, back in Cape Town to explicate what new instruments of power for foresight and oversight are available for transparency, transformation and building trust.
To this end not only does the MPI apply itself to meaningful dialogue with results, but it has the twin purpose that becomes a tool of foresight whereby one can explore different what if scenarios before taking a plunge.
Given the four sessions I contributed to prior the session in parliament and many more I have been invited to, it is quite clear that South Africa is immersed in dialogue and seeking solutions. The Sandf discussions that focused on the 800 000 youth that go into waste annually; the motor industry interrogation of what growth prospects are available in South Africa in a population where there is no intergenerational value; GIBS discussions focused on the search for Serious Social Impacts and Parliamentary search for new instruments of power to resolve the dark space South Africa has plunged itself into eyes wide open points to the urgency of the matter.
Leaving my luggage in Cape Town because the choice of taking it along would have meant missing my flight and purchasing a new ticket by a pensioner without access to a two-pot relief system was a price too little to pay when paying attention to existential challenges and participating in the search for solutions.
What is clearly deficient in my experience in the four sessions that almost left me exasperating for a private jet, a personal assistant and a driver, is what Morena Mohlomi, the 18th Century sage of Ngolile, says on leadership and measurement. He says “a responsible leader pursues peaceful and productive alliances, accommodates stakeholders, and uses new instruments of power to create intergenerational value”.
But equally important is the assertion by British scientist Lord Kelvin (1824–1907), , “When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.”
Having been privileged with working in the nervous system of the state, I am increasingly concerned about the Mohlomi and Kevin vitamin deficiency syndrome suffered across the state. The Mohlomi and Kevin vitamin is what is what should be injected in the state in order to change not only the characterisation of our challenge, but its trajectory and momentum.
Dr Pali Lehohla is a Professor of Practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former Statistician-General of South Africa.
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