Programme Director 

MMC, Subesh Pillay

Chairman of iPARK, Mr Omar Hamarneh

TIHMC Board Members

CEO of The Innovation Hub, Mr McLean Sibanda

Programme Coordinator, Climate Technology Programme, World Bank, Mr Jonathan Coony

Princess Sumaya Bint El Hassan, President of the Royal Scientific Society

CEOs of other Climate Innovation Centres

Executives of both The Innovation Hub and World Bank’s infoDev

The Innovation Hub and World Bank’s staff

Members of the media

Ladies and gentlemen;

Good evening,

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the Gala Dinner for the Climate Innovation Centre Conference to be held on 25 and 26 March 2015.  In particular, I wish to welcome our international delegates to our province and South Africa.  This province is an important economy, being the fourth largest economy in Africa.

 

In 2011, the Gauteng Department of Economic Development through The Innovation Hub partnered with the World Bank’s infoDev division to develop a business plan for the Climate Innovation South Africa.  This was on the back of the Gauteng Government realizing the importance of the Green Economy on the future growth of Gauteng and the need to develop small medium enterprises (SMEs) to provide solutions to the many emerging challenges in the energy, water and environment sectors.  The business plan was completed in 2012 and we have since been exploring the best ways of funding its implementation. 

 

We appreciate the opportunity to meet with our partners, World Bank’s infoDev, Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and other business sectors as we work towards an inclusive green to promote innovative technologies and business models that address local climate challenges whilst creating jobs and improving the economic growth in South Africa.

 

Programme director, I wish to recognise the efforts of The Innovation Hub, its contributions to the green economy and also taking a stance to create awareness to indicate that climate change is really one of the greatest threats to sustainable development and it is important that communities are made aware of climate change as we continue to look at working towards a greener future, opportunities of climate proofing of our people, our economy and natural resources. 

 

To a great extent, the Climate Innovation Centre South Africa is aligned to the Gauteng Department of Economic Development green economy strategy focusing on the development of green technologies and innovations that ensure the right environmental framework and initiatives are put in place to foster economic growth, job creation, and contribute to poverty eradication. The concept of green economy is one of the several closely related constructs that have emerged in recent years to enhance convergence among the three pillars of sustainable development. Greening the economy will be achieved by pursuing the following overarching programmes:

• Food security: reducing food imports and vastly increasing local food production

• Energy security: reducing dependence on oil and coal-based sources of energy by increasing the supply of renewable energy and improving energy efficiency

• Water security: reducing total water consumption by 15% by improving efficiencies, introducing recycling, increased public education, and reversing pollution via more effective management of Gauteng’s water resources and associated eco-system services

• Zero waste: by seeing all waste outputs as potential productive inputs, measures will be introduced to reduce, recycle and re-use

• Sustainable mobility: to reduce dependence on oil and limit carbon emissions, investments in public transport systems will be accelerated so that the number of trips in private vehicles can be reduced by 15%

 

Programme Director, a new foundation of growth; innovation; new technologies and models for driving investment are urgently required to provide long-term prosperity in unwavering, sustainable and inclusive way. It is also important to note that greening the economy is particularly important in South Africa for two basis reasons: (1) the exceptional level of unemployment that the country is experiencing and (2) the high carbon impact of the economy green is one of the priority sectors mentioned in the New Growth Path due to the fact that the green economy has a potential for job creation.

 

Ladies and gentleman, CIC will be uniquely positioned to nurture and ascertain that South Africa gears towards low carbon, develop more creative solutions to climate change green growth paths to have the competitive advantage and support innovation by offering a full suite of financing and capacity building services to technologists, entrepreneurs, and small medium enterprises that address challenges to start and scale their climate technology ventures. In addition to incubating promising start-ups, I am told the business model for the Climate Innovation Centres is to bridge local funding gaps by providing dedicated proof-of-concept and seed funds to entrepreneurs.

 

As we start with our conference tomorrow with speakers that are drawn from other CICs as well as several leading global experts in the green economy, we urge all South Africans, clean tech companies to join hands with us as we build modern innovative industries in the green economy. The conference is aptly themed “Inclusive green growth through climate innovation,” in alignment with the focus of the 5th Administration’s focus on Transformation, Modernisation and reindustrialization of the Gauteng Economy to ensure inclusive growth and creation of opportunities for our people.  

 

Our government has in ensuring transformation of the Gauteng Economy also made a conscious decision to focus on the Township Economy revitalization.  I am pleased to learn that the Climate Innovation South Africa will be implementing some of the findings of the study entitled “Inclusive Green Growth” undertaken by the World Bank in 2013 in conjunction with The Innovation Hub whose aims were to facilitate and foster innovative clean technology entrepreneurship within the context of the surrounding township communities.

 

I am pleased that in the past few months, The Innovation Hub has concluded a collaboration agreement with the DBSA to identify and support innovative ideas that will form a strong pipeline for its Green Fund.  This collaboration ensures that the Climate Innovation South Africa model is deployed to other provinces, to also identify solutions with potential, in particular, to address Gauteng’s energy challenges.

 

I wish to urge continued strengthening of the partnerships amongst the Climate Innovation Centres to ensure we build strong SMEs that can provide our economies with appropriate technology solutions.  We look forward to celebrating the success of the many high growth SMEs with innovative clean technologies that will emerge from the Climate Innovation Centres to address the global climate change challenges

 

Lastly, I want to take this opportunity to convey our heartfelt gratitude to the World Bank’s InfoDev and the DBSA for supporting this initiative. I also call upon the corporate sector and other development partners to collaborate with the Climate Innovation Centre South Africa to advance this programme so that we can Together, Move Gauteng City Region forward.  

 

To our international visitors, I hope that you will find time to experience the warm hospitality of the people of Gauteng.  – I THANK YOU.