SOUTH AFRICA - FINLAND KNOWLEDGE PARTNERSHIP ON ICT PROGRAMME (SAFIPA)

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Government of Finland (GoF) and the South African Department of Science and Technology (DST) view the investments in research, development and innovation capacity as critical to the successful building of a sustainable information society in South Africa both in a national and regional context.

In order to achieve the overall goal of a sustainable information society, the South African government identified three strategic objectives: human capital development; technology research; and innovation enhancement.

The South African Government, through the Department of Science and Technology, has actively engaged with the Government of Finland, through the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. While this engagement includes already a number of areas, such as the capacity building in the field of Innovation Policy or provincial information society strategies, the focus of the  South Africa - Finland Knowledge Partnership Programme is in the enhancement of immediate service delivery process.

The overall objective of the programme is to support the creation of  an environment which facilitates the development and deployment of ICT service applications for the benefit of South African citizens.  Thus the programme is addressing the creation and delivery models of ICT based service applications which are suitable for local conditions especially in the most vulnerable parts of population.

This programme document provides support in addressing the issues raised in ICT Research & Development Strategy. The long term sustainability of the programme is based on the strong commitment by the Department of Science and Technology to this strategy.  

To achieve the overall objective of the programme, three interdependent components have been designed:

Component 1: Institutional capacity development
•   Capacity building is a process that involves value added instruction, the training of trainers, activities with multiplier effects, and networking. It involves both institutional and human capacity-building.


Component 2: Innovative IS applications and new solutions for end users
•   The projects identified will be addressing education & learning sector and societal development issues such as empowering disabled and aging populations. All have specific human capital development outputs among the target constituency. The sustainability of the solution delivered is considered very important and hence a special attention is attached to the identification of the institutional education and learning outputs. The component has two elements:

-   Selection, upgrading and implementation of the projects already identified;
-   Identification and preparation of new projects and stakeholder groups.

Component 3: Network creation and dissemination
•   The aim is to strengthen cooperation between research institutions both locally and globally as well as to support Public-Private partnership in the service delivery process. For dissemination purpose Programme will organise annual international conference together with relevant programme stakeholders (universities, companies, communities etc.) to inform programme results, to innovate new development activities and promote networking.

The results of the South Africa - Finland Knowledge Partnership -programme will be:

Result 1: Increased ability by ICT stakeholder organizations including Meraka to generate and apply new knowledge that will positively impact on marginalized groups in South Africa.
Result 2: Improved innovative IS applications for end users trough project results;
Result 3: Increased regional, national and pan-African R&D and institutional linkages in the area of innovation/ICT.

The Partnership Programme will be implemented through institutional collaboration by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs for Finland (MFA) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), South Africa.

The MFA will provide the funding of EUR 3 000 000 and DST will provide
9 000 000 ZAR.

The DST through the SAFIPA Programme Office (SPO) will be the implementing agency.

The Programme consists of three components:
•   Human Capital Development
•   Innovative IS applications for end users
•   Network creation and dissemination

The overall duration of the Programme is 36 months.

The monitoring system will facilitate a continuous self-evaluation as part of programme’s planning and decision-making. An external evaluation will take place towards the end of the year 2009. The object of the evaluation is to assess the overall impacts of the Programme, and needs for adjustments in Programme’s activities, and to assess sustainability of the initiated cooperation between the Finnish and South African institutions.