South African Futures expert workshop

Date: 2013-04-02 to 2013-04-03

Venue: Conference Room , ISS Pretoria

The African Futures Project (http://www.issafrica.org/futures) is a joint undertaking between the ISS and the Frederick S Pardee Center for International Futures at the University of Denver (http://www.ifs.du.edu/). As part of this project, a critical assessment will be conducted of the feasibility of South Africa’s National Development Plan (NDP) known as Vision 2030. The project, ‘Development of South African Futures: Vision 2030’ also aims to raise awareness among South African stakeholders about the potential benefits of the International Futures (IFs) model for the purpose of strategic policy planning and implementation.

The objective of the workshop was to commence with a process to support and model the key policy choices to be made in the implementation of Vision 2030 using the IFs forecasting software system. This will be achieved by first reviewing key sectoral forecasts from the extensive dataset available within IFs and, based on the dynamic interplay between variables, develop different scenarios for achieving the NDP’s 2030 goals. Eventually, this will allow the feasibility of South Africa’s Vision 2030 to be assessed. The workshop also intended to raise awareness among South African stakeholders about the benefits of IFs for the strategic planning and implementation, including monitoring and evaluation.

The workshop assembled around 20 issue experts in the fields of population, education, health, access to rural services and agriculture, energy and natural systems, economic growth and productivity, infrastructure, government revenues, and South Africa’s position in the international system. These experts critically assessed and reviewed IFs data and base-case forecasts. This will provide a sufficiently sound basis to identify possible data gaps, inaccuracies or data reconciliation issues as represented by the IFs model. The experts also assisted with understanding and interpreting the targets set by the NDP 2030.

The seminar was chaired by Dr Jakkie Cilliers, executive director of the ISS and Dr Julia Schünemann, senior researcher and project leader of the African Futures Project. Dr Jonathan Moyer, interim associate director of the Pardee Center for International Futures at the University of Denver led the workshop sessions and provided presentations on each of the issue areas as well as the IFs model itself.