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8
HSRC Annual Report 2016/17
CEO’s
Overview
2016/17 bore witness to a fair amount of turbulence in our country, ranging from increased incidents of racism, service
delivery protests, citizen participation in social movements calling for a transformed socio-economic environment,
and some dramatic changes in governance of our main cities following the country’s fifth local government elections.
Indeed, increased economic and social inequality in South Africa also comes amidst what has been described as anaemic
economic growth and increased job insecurity.
Our current social and economic conditions bring to mind the oft quoted statement by Victor Hugo, “Nothing is more
powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
The time – and idea – that has come is for all institutions in South Africa, public and private, to confront the reality that
we cannot continue to do the same things and expect different results. We cannot continue to lament the high levels
of poverty and inequality in our country, and continue to apply the same remedies in the hope of reducing these. We
cannot continue to expect the citizens of our country to remain patient while we in the public, and private, sector
continue to experiment with solutions which do not yield the expected results.
This reality, while dire, provides a great opportunity for the HSRC to contribute to understanding the root causes of
our collective inability to deliver on the promise of a better South Africa for the millions of our citizens. With a deeper
understanding can come the right solutions.
In pursuit of this, the Council will be guided by the theme
‘Poverty and inequality: diagnosis, prognosis, responses’
for
the next five years. We will apply various research methodologies and our collective human capital expertise towards
understanding the root causes of poverty and inequality in our research agenda.
The question of the obdurate poverty and inequality with which we grapple on a daily basis, is at the core of many national
policies and programmes, including, amongst others, the National Development Plan and the 10 Year Innovation Plan
developed by the Department of Science and Technology. In its introduction, the Innovation Plan immediately connects
the innovation revolution with socio-economic development, observing that“South Africa’s innovation revolution must
help solve our society’s deep and pressing socio-economic challenges.”