Briefing of The South African Ambassador to Germany, H.E. Sizani on the EcoSUN project status
H.E. Ambassador Sizani, together with The Minister Plenipotentiary Cassimjee, and Ms Natasha Maharaj, First Secretary Political Issues of the Embassy, kindly welcomed a delegation of the EcoSUN project team and Prof Mbanga of Nelson Mandela University during his visit to Germany in July, 2019.
Information were given about the status of the EcoSUN project and the cooperation activities with the University of Potsdam. Prof Mbanga was accompanied by his hosts, Ass Prof Konrad Soyez, of University of Potsdam, and Architect Barbara Mohren, both EcoSUN Management team. The Embassy has already long term co-operation with the University of Potsdam and regular negotiations with their Vice President of International Affairs, Alumni and fund raising, Prof. Schweigert, and staff members of the Embassy participated in the Africa Conference held in 2018 when the Personal Advisor for Africa of Chancellor Frau Merkel, Mr Nooke, was present. The recent negotiations of Prof Mbanga with Prof Schweigert resulted in the proposal to develop the EcoSUN Project a core activity of the African Initiative of the University and shall be chan-neled into a MoU, soon. Exchange of students are considered a first step, and a workshop of Potsdam Uni-versity Chairs will sort out which themes were important for both partners.
H.E. Ambassador Sizani (centre) and Minister Plenipotentiary Cassumjee (1st right) welcomed the EcoSUN Delegation
H.E. Sizani had formerly been the Advisor of the Premier of the Eastern Cape Province and was therefore a most informed partner in the discussion of project related topics and getting his advice, especially with ref-erence to the social conditions, people's cultural background, and economic and educational challenges, was highly welcomed. He stressed that the new deal initiated by the recently elected President Ramaphosa will encourage the departments on national and provincial levels to deepen the cooperation with such kind of projects, and this is already realized by the recently re-organized Department of Science and Innovation, where the term "Innovation" is the clear hint that science is seen an instrument aiming to improve the eco-nomic welfare of the country and the life of the people.
With special respect to the socio-economic situation on site the Ambassador stressed that people often have traditional doubts in technologies differing from the traditionally most applied. This could be the case for grey water recycling since people prefer using tap water even for flushing toilets. Demonstration and pilot-ing of such technologies as it will happen in the EcoSUN project, were seen also efficient approaches and may support education on all levels, starting with school children. Laundry as a business could be a starting point for individual businesses in case that customers could be found in the population. German KfW bank is very helpful when they give small credits to the people to start their business.
It would be good if the EcoSUN project could be a core initiative for the development of new business op-portunities besides the direct project related topics, that generate income and help overcome environmental and resource management challenges. An example is Chicoree farming and its use for nutritional purposes since more than 40 species of Chicoree are known from which presently only one is used for Coffee, in-stead for diets, by Nestle. The same is the case with Spekboom that is an eatable plant with high Vitamin C level not used yet. Practical application of all aspects of research into the EcoSUN project would be very helpful.
The development of curricula for technicians is seen a powerful tool to make sure that the EcoSUN Green Village will be functional in the long term.
Minister Plenipotentiary Cassumjee pointed out that similar ideas as with EcoSUN were intended by Sie-mens Corp. in their Smart Cities project under realization in Alexandria near Joburg, and the EcoSUN team will contact Siemens to find out if there were cooperation potentials.
It was agreed that the EcoSUN team will communicate important milestones of the project in the future.
Published at: March, 3rd 2020
