Ten years after South Africa ended apartheid and returned to the international arena, the country is a model of good governance, freedom and democracy, Kenya’s agricultural attache in South Africa, Bernard Kitheka, said on Tuesday.
”South Africa’s economy is growing steadily and qualifies as a genuine emerging market. The citizens of this country, by and large, enjoy the same rights — a primary objective of the struggle,” Kitheka said at a World Meteorological Day function hosted by the South African Weather Service (SAWS).
However, Kitheka warned that the threats posed to South Africa by poverty, disease, unemployment and crime point to the fact that the country’s transformation isn’t complete.
Turning to the rest of the Africa, he said that the continent is desperately waiting for its first true success story, one that would compare with the success of the Asian Tigers.
”South Africa has the elements necessary to become that country and subsequently the example for the others in Africa to follow,” Kitheka said.
South Africa’s contribution to the New Partnership for Africa’s Development is an attribute to the country’s Afrocentric foreign policy and an acknowledgement by the African National Congress government of the importance of Africa to South Africa’s future well-being.
The SAWS’s involvement in the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation programmes in Africa is welcome due to the SAWS’s sophistication and experience, Kitheka said.
South Africa and Kenya are playing leading roles in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad), respectively, in the implementation of the Preparation for the Use of Meteosat Second-Generation Satellites in Africa (Puma) task force.
The Igad is a regional economic group consisting of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.
”African countries stand to benefit from the project in many ways including updating technology by using modern equipment in the ground receiving stations across Africa, training in the use of these and analysis of the data,” Kitheka said.
Outside South Africa and Kenya, Morocco in North Africa and Niger in West Africa are also involved in the Puma project.
The key sectors to benefit from the Puma project will be agriculture, energy, water and environmental management, forestry, wildlife services and universities.
”I congratulate South Africa for becoming the host for the Meteosat second-generation satellite regional training centre that will serve the SADC region,” Kitheka added.
The centre in South African will provide scientific and technical training to SADC countries to allow them to use the new generation Meteosat satellites.
The Meteosat second-generation satellites were put into space by the European Union’s European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.
The organisation has replaced the Meteosat seven satellites with eight satellites.
The new era Meteosat satellites, which circulate 36 000km above the Earth’s surface, provide 12 difference weather channels for viewing Africa while the old satellites only had three channels, which consisted of visual images, infared images and water vapour images.
The quality and the resolution of the images are much better and the new Meteosat satellites update every 15 minutes, compared with 30 minutes before.
Meanwhile, the SAWS is concerned about the decline in weather observations, information and data in Africa, SAWS CEO Jeremiah Lengoasa said at the function in Pretoria.
He said the key reason for the decline in weather information in Africa is the increasing cost of meteorological equipment and technology.
As part of South Africa’s effort to bolster Southern African’s weather forecasting, the SAWS is exchanging weather data with its SADC neighbours. — I-Net Bridge