Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

UFS experts join national team to assess government’s Operation Vulindlela

18 May 2023 | Story André Damons | Photo Supplied

Powerstation — South Africa is facing increasing water stress due to a variety of factors.

South Africa, like the rest of Africa, is facing increasing water stress due to a variety of factors, including inadequate maintenance and investment in water and sanitation infrastructure, unequal access to water, poor water quality, and increasingly unsustainable water demand. Flooding and drought disasters and disruptions in water and sanitation services have become more frequent in recent years amidst a growing population in a semi-arid country.

In addition to the ongoing load shedding crisis we are facing, South Africa is rapidly approaching a situation where “water shedding” is becoming a tangible issue. Although it hasn’t reached a nationwide scale yet, the occurrence of disruptions in water supply systems due to shortages and a combination of other factors is growing significantly.

This situation is detrimental, not only to South Africa’s developmental goals but also to its socio-economic position within the Southern African development community region and the continent as a whole.

This is according to academics from the University of the Free State (UFS) and the University of Pretoria (UP) who were part of a group of academics and industry experts who did an independent assessment of Operation Vulindlela’s impact on South Africa. Pres Cyril Ramaphosa unveiled Operation Vulindlela – a joint initiative of the Presidency and National Treasury that aims to modernise and transform network industries – in 2020 as the vehicle to “fast-track the delivery of economic reforms”.

Prof Paul Oberholster, Director of the UFS Centre for Environmental Management and an expert in wastewater treatment, and Dr Yolandi Schoeman, his Postdoctoral Fellow, together with Prof Emma Archer, Professor in Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Pretoria were asked by Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) to focus on water.

Bring about the structural change

RMB states in the report that it commissioned a body of work by academics and industry experts to independently evaluate whether the execution of policy initiatives set out by Operation Vulindlela, would bring about the structural change that is necessary to accelerate SA’s growth and employment. The subsequent parts of this report focus on three of the five network industries identified by Operation Vulindlela – electricity, water and transport (ports and rail).

“It was an honour to have been part of this project with RMB and to unpack and strategically assess the water sector in South Africa. We know that there are plenty of challenges, but there are also remarkable opportunities where we can implement solutions and demonstrate impact, bring about change and work hard in turning the situation around as a joint constructive collaborative approach.

“They are very keen on working with leaders in the water space with qualities of strategic thinking, innovation, collaboration, inclusivity, and a strong commitment to sustainable development. It is an impactful contribution indeed,” says Prof Oberholster.

In their sections of the report, under heading South Africa's Blue Revolution: Investing in a thriving water future South Africa, Prof Oberholster, Dr Schoeman and Prof Archer, focused on five themes, namely Water for planetary health, Water for development, Water for climate, resilience and the environment, Water for cooperation and The Water Decade of Action.

“We were asked to evaluate the viability of what is still left to be done in the water sector in South Africa. We were asked to contribute our thinking to the RMB handbook for the purpose of distribution to corporate and institutional clients. As part of our outcome we provided clear and unbiased direction to RMB’s clients on the joint initiative the likely impact of Operation Vulindlela on economic growth and what still needs to be done to turn the water sector around,” according to Prof Oberholster.

Guidelines to improve the country’s water situation

He says their aim was to give guidelines on how to improve the country’s water situation. He believes the work they have done with this assessment and on other occasions, will help the UFS in its goal to be a university that impactfully supports societal development as set out in Vision 130, which states: Our knowledge will continue to contribute to the development of the Free State, South Africa, and the African continent and to advance global knowledge and understanding.

As clean water and sanitation is Goal 6 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is a further indication of the importance of this research and work.

According to Dr Schoeman, reports like these are important because they help raise awareness of the challenges and opportunities for achieving water security and sustainable development. They identify problems and bottlenecks within the industry, helping to target areas that require immediate attention and action. They provide potential solutions and enable dialogue to the problems identified, giving stakeholders a roadmap for action and providing essential background that can enable investment and further inform investment priorities.

“Such reports help to inform planning and decision-making processes by providing data, evidence, and recommendations based on research and analysis. They encourage collaboration and coordination among stakeholders by providing a common understanding of the issues and potential solutions.

“They also provide guidance and recommendations for decision-makers to improve water resources management and governance. Water is a vital resource for human health, food security, energy production, environmental protection and more, so it is essential to recognise its worth and incorporate it into planning and policies,” says Dr Schoeman.

Blue Revolution

The academics also talks about the Blue Revolution – essential blue solutions – in supporting Operation Vulindlela which can enable a sustainable future for South Africa's water management system. The Blue Revolution in South Africa, write the academics, refers to a comprehensive strategy and functional implementation for modernising and transforming the country’s water sector. It aims to improve water management practices and enhance the water sector’s overall efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability in enabling planetary health.

News Archive

Open letter from Prof Jonathan Jansen to all UFS students

2014-02-22

Dear Students of the University of the Free State

In the past four years there has emerged a new consensus on the three campuses of the University of the Free State (UFS) about the things that divide us – such as racism, sexism and homophobia. Students and campus leaders have worked hard to develop this new consensus in residences and in the open spaces on campus. There can be no doubt that new bonds of friendship have developed across the markers of race, ethnicity, class, religion and sexual orientation. I bear witness to these new solidarities every day on the campus.

You chose a white student to head up the transformation portfolio on the SRC. You chose a black captain to head up the university’s first team in rugby. You chose a white “prime” as head of residence to lead a predominantly black men’s residence. You chose a South African woman of Indian descent as Rag Queen and last week, a black student from Cape Town as the men’s Rag winner—choices not possible and never made before in our campus history. Many of you have intimate friends who come from different social or cultural or religious backgrounds. You learn together, share rooms together, pray together and party together. In other words, in the day to day workings of this university campus, you have demonstrated to campus, city and country that we can overcome the lingering effects of racism and other maladies in this new generation. You have helped create a university community inclusive of people of diverse religions, abilities, class and sexual orientation.

I have said this repeatedly that from time to time this new consensus will be tested – when a minority of students, and they are a small and dwindling minority, still act as if these are the days of apartheid. And when that consensus is tested as it was this week, and as it will be tested in the future, only then we will be able to assess the strength and durability of our progress in creating a new South African campus culture of human togetherness based on respect, dignity and embrace.

The real test of our leadership, including student leadership, is how we respond when our transformation drive is threatened.

Let me say this: I have absolute faith in you, as students of this great university, to stand together in your condemnation of these vile acts of violence and to move together in your determination to maintain the momentum for the Human Project of the University of the Free State. We have come too far to allow a few criminals to derail what you have built together in recent years.

There will, no doubt, be unscrupulous people on all sides of the political spectrum wanting to milk this tragedy for their own narrow purposes. There will be false information, rumours and exaggerations by those who wish to inflame a bad situation to gain mileage for their agendas. That is inevitable in a country that is still so divided.

I ask you, through all of this, to keep perspective. Two or ten or even twenty students behaving badly do not represent 30,000 students; a minority of violent and hateful persons do not represent the ideals, ambitions and commitments of the majority. At the same time, let us be realistic – anyone who thinks you can drive transformation without resistance clearly does not understand the difficult process of change.

The events of the week remind us, however, that we still have a long road to walk in deepening social and academic transformation at our university. Yes, we have invested hundreds of hours in training and mentorship; we have created new structures – such as the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice – to capture the energy and imagination of students driving transformation; we have created many opportunities for students to study and travel on this and other continents to enable cross-cultural learning; we have established formal and informal opportunities to dialogue about difficult issues on and off campus between students and their leaders; and we crafted new curricula to enable teaching and learning on the big questions of our times.

But this is clearly not enough, and so I have decided on the following immediate next steps:

We will meet for several hours next week to think about how we can deepen the transformation of our university after this terrible incident.
We will arrange a University Assembly on the events of the past week so that we speak with one voice on human wrongs and to re-commit to human rights and we will continue with open forum discussions during the months to come.
We will review the entire spectrum of programmes, from orientation to residence life to the undergraduate curriculum, to determine how effective our interventions really are in reaching all students with respect to basic issues of human rights.
We will review our media and communications strategy to determine how far and deep our messages on human rights travel across all sectors of the university community. In this regard it is important that the campus be blanketed on a regular basis with our condemnation of human wrongs and our commitment to human rights.
We will commission the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice to review the events of the past week and make recommendations on how we can improve the campus environment so that all students are protected from harm inside residences, classrooms and in open spaces of the campus.
We will take the questions raised during this week into the academic community and to the general staff of the university so that all personnel also engage with our own roles and responsibilities with respect to campus transformations.
We undertake to make annual report-backs on transformation to all stakeholders in public forums so that students and staff and external communities can track the progress of the university on matters of human rights on campus.

I wish to thank my staff for acting firmly as soon as this tragic event came to our attention. We worked through the night to find and identify the perpetrators. We traced the two students and immediately handed them to the police. They were expelled. And throughout this process we offered counselling and support to the victim of this violent act.

The two former students were expelled and will now face justice in the criminal courts. It is hoped that in the course of time they will come to their senses and seek restoration and reconciliation with the student they so callously harmed. They are not part of the university community anymore.

That is the kind of university we are.

Jonathan D Jansen
Vice-Chancellor and Rector
University of the Free State
20 February 2014

Note: The use of the word ‘campus’ refers to all three campuses of the UFS, namely the Bloemfontein Campus, South Campus and Qwaqwa Campus.

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept