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The world is emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, more fragmented and further away from the more equal and equitable iteration imagined in 2015 when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were conceptualised. As we hurtle at seemingly lightning speed towards the 2030 deadline to achieve these goals, the urgency is palpable. Although we have certainly strayed further away from the targets, there is still time to act in order to ensure that we inch closer to this vision. Professor Tshilidzi Marwala paints a stark, and often grim, picture of our current context, one defined by monumental setbacks in the SDGs. Yet, as he carves out each developmental goal and its implications, it is apparent that there are tangible solutions that can be implemented now. Tshilidzi's assertion that now is the time to act is backed by intricate and actionable data with a simple mission statement: we must heal the future. He offers a new narrative that addresses how we can translate the latent potential that exists through technology, innovation and Fourth Industrial Revolution approaches to leadership and policy making to deal with, among others, corruption, poverty eradication, joblessness, an education system in crisis, declining economies and food insecurity. Heal our World is a deep dive into the SDGs, particularly in the African context, and it looks toward securing a future in which our divisions are blurred, and our goals seem almost in reach again. Tshilidzi Marwala, the author of Heal our World, Leading in the 21st Century and Leadership Lessons from Books I Have Read is the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg. From 1 March 2023, he will be the Rector of the United Nations University based in Tokyo, Japan. He was previously Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Johannesburg and Full Professor at the Carl & Emily Fuchs Chair of Systems and Control Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. Tshilidzi holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering (magna cum laude) from Case Western Reserve University, a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Cambridge and a Post-Doc at Imperial College (London). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and the South African Academy of Engineering (SAAE). He is a distinguished member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). His research interests are multidisciplinary and include the theory and application of artificial intelligence to engineering, computer science, finance, social science and medicine. He has supervised 37 doctoral students. He has also published 23 books on artificial intelligence (one translated into Chinese) and over 300 papers in journals, proceedings, book chapters and magazines. He holds five international patents.
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Securing a Sustainable Future
TSHILIDZI
MARWALA
First published by Tracey McDonald Publishers, 2022
Suite No. 53, Private Bag X903, Bryanston, South Africa, 2021
www.traceymcdonaldpublishers.com
Copyright © Tshilidzi Marwala, 2022
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-998958-59-7
e-ISBN 978-1-998958-60-3
Text design and typesetting by Patricia Crain, Empressa
Editing by Lia Labuschagne
Cover design by Tomangopawpadilla
Cover photography by Devin Lester Photography
Digital conversion by Wouter Reinders
The meeting of leaders in 2015 to concertedly plan for a transformed world resulted in the identification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The preamble asserted, ‘We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path.’
Whilst these goals are laudable and aspirational, the task before us is to ensure that there is less policy rhetorical noise and more concrete actions that demonstrate progress. Our global landscape is uneven with substantial policy differentials, inequalities or internal drivers that impact on the pace of realisation of these goals. There are intriguing complexities to these divisions. As we delve into the SDGs, the apparent skewed access pinpoints that certain groups are certainly more disadvantaged than others. My time at the United Nations (UN) demonstrated the immense strain women, and particularly African women, take. This is an intriguing dichotomy when you consider that African women are considered the bedrock of families on the continent.
Exploration of the nuanced approaches to achieving these goals, more particularly in Africa and for women, is absolutely critical. This book represents an accessible study of the SDGs and offers alternative approaches to understanding the context that shapes and inhibits our achievement of these goals. In 2019, de Silva de Alwis and I wrote on Redefining Leadership in the Age of the SDGs: Accelerating and Scaling Up Delivery Through Innovation and Inclusion. We stated that, ‘The leaders analysed here all strive for innovation through inclusion. James MacGregor Burns, the famous leadership theorist, argued that the best leaders “raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality”. Our findings support his conclusion. The SDGs set a high bar, and contemporary leaders must be willing to collaborate for their achievement.’
Despite the ambitious nature of the SDGs, it can be countered that all contributions towards any of the goals are significant and valuable. The interconnectedness of the goals points to a greater dream. Our dreams have had to be tempered in Africa by the reality of the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, ever-rising costs, unemployment and sliding economic fortunes in its countries. A reality that we contend with is that these crises precipitate a dance of misfortune as we reverse the gains made due to prevailing conditions being suboptimal. Despite the speed of the responses to the pandemic across most countries in Africa amidst vaccine access inequalities, governments have had to reprioritise resources for food security, enhanced investments in the public health sector, measures to stimulate the labour market and even the introduction of special grants to contend with the exigencies of the pandemic.
Does a crisis provide alternative windows of opportunity for creating new pathways despite the uncertainties of the future? As the hard work of stabilising countries in the post-pandemic era begins, we must not lose sight of the possibility of working collaboratively to rebuild socio-political and economic bridges to address the SDGs. According to the 4th Africa Sustainable Development Report: Accelerating Equitable and Sustainable Development in Africa (2020), there is demonstrable progress in the way African governments have incorporated the SDGs and the Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want goals into national strategies and development plans. What is clear is that the report argues for ‘higher order’ strategies to pursue these goals. These strategies must be bolstered with robust governance, innovative programmes of action that are contextually relevant and sustainable, and strong visionary leadership and collective responsibility by all.
Tshilidzi Marwala has written a formidable book calling upon us to ‘Heal our World’, which explores the contours of the map required to secure a sustainable future. As a world-renowned scientist, a leader of higher education and a thought leader, his book explores the 17 SDGs and places them in the African context. Notably, the book argues that in the 21st century, the model of leadership required must be cognisant of the skill sets required for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The coexistence of the pandemic and the advent of the 4IR create enormous levels of discomfort. This discomfort can be viewed as a ‘disruptor’ that can jolt us out of complacency. I believe that this book provides an important trigger point to stimulate discussions, influence policy making, and develop concrete plans to move us towards attaining the SDGs, while ensuring that we place the most marginalised members of our communities at the fore.
Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
Incoming Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg
In an impassioned speech delivered in January 2022, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres declared, ‘The well-being of people around the world, the health of our planet, and the survival of future generations depend on our willingness to come together around a commitment to collective problem-solving and action.’
This signalled a call for a New Global Deal to share power, wealth and opportunities more broadly and allow developing countries to focus their resources on sustainable, inclusive development – mainly through achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
SDGs
The SDGs are 17 goals for global development – effectively a blueprint for significantly changing the world by 2030. To quickly run through them, the 17 SDGs are: (1) No Poverty, (2) Zero Hunger, (3) Good Health and Well-being, (4) Quality Education, (5) Gender Equality, (6) Clean Water and Sanitation, (7) Affordable and Clean Energy, (8) Decent Work and Economic Growth, (9) Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, (10) Reduced Inequality, (11) Sustainable Cities and Communities, (12) Responsible Consumption and Production, (13) Climate Action, (14) Life Below Water, (15) Life on Land, (16) Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, and (17) Partnerships for the Goals.
There is now a renewed sense of urgency, with only eight years until 2030 and the issue is exacerbated by the setbacks because of COVID-19.
COVID-19
In reality the COVID-19 pandemic has brought grief, death, illness and left immense destruction in its path. Last year it emerged that COVID-19 had led to the first rise in extreme poverty in a generation. In fact, the SDG Report 2021 found that in 2020, 119 to 124 million people were thrust into extreme poverty, and an additional 101 million children have fallen below the minimum reading proficiency level.
For the first time after the adoption of the SDGs in 2015, in 2020 the global average SDG Index score decreased from 2019 and this is driven by increased poverty rates and unemployment. This decline is also expected to be severely underestimated. Almost across the board, there were substantial setbacks to the progress of the SDGs. Importantly, it also demonstrated that our very staggered approach to the SDGs in recent years has contributed to these setbacks.
Africa Development
Guterres explained in a foreword to the report that the world was ill-prepared for COVID-19 because it had not fully embraced the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. For Africa in particular, with varying degrees of development, political dissonance, and historically deep fissures of inequality and inequity, our recovery and road maps to rebuilding societies and economies are absolutely crucial.
In 2020, Africa’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted 2.1%, marking the continent’s first recession in half a century. The African Development Bank estimates that about 39 million Africans could be subject to extreme poverty and conditions of deprivation by this year if we do not devise interventionist strategies rapidly. How do we now translate the latent potential that exists to deal with poverty eradication, disease, joblessness, declining economies, and food insecurity – to name just a few of the wicked problems that besiege our continent? These challenges highlight the importance of science, technology, and innovation as our weaponry in any scenario of emergence from the crisis towards economic recovery as we take steps to a ‘new normal’. Creativity, innovation and the adoption and promotion of emerging technologies now take centre stage, as societal problems have shifted in the wake of COVID-19. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that although the SDGs are a guiding force, we need a tangible plan.
Technology and Innovation
In 2021, the African Union Development Agency NEPAD (AUDA-NEPAD) argued that African countries must reinforce and synchronise innovation and emerging technology policies and regulations to produce an enabling environment for Africa’s innovation and emerging technology development.
It was said that there was a need to close the gap between policy making and research for better innovation outputs. At the Consultative Meeting on Enhancing the Domestication of the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa in 2021, Shireen Assem eloquently argued for the power of technology in providing solutions to some of society’s grand challenges. As she put it, technology would be ‘accelerating the growing economic inequalities between and within nations, opening doors to new markets, new technologies, and new sources of competition, which spur the creativity and productivity and form(ing) the basis of strategies for economic competitiveness.’
Various interventions are required. Firstly, infrastructure as a broadly defined term must be in place. Secondly, a coherent and enabling policy framework must be established, particularly in the realms of science, technology and innovation. Thirdly, education needs to be reimagined and revitalised at every tier. Fourthly, we must actively invest in research and development. Fifthly, we need to trigger and sustain business entrepreneurship. Sixthly, there is a fundamental need to foster local, national and international collaborations and networks. Seventhly, it is crucial for Africa to grow and participate in the global knowledge economy. Finally, we should ensure that there is a diversification of funding resources.
Leadership
What is apparent is that parallel to the goal of achieving the SDGs there is a need for a shift in leadership approaches. As we examine leadership against our grim context, it seems that although willingness is crucial, leadership skills are imperative. With the fast pace of change of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) era, we have to probe what these skills should look like.
Though there are several levels of complexities, it is apparent that a leader needs 4IR thinking, which entails the following skills: critical thinking, creativity, complex problem solving, people management, emotional intelligence, coordinating with others, judgement and decision making, negotiation, service orientation and cognitive flexibility. Significantly, we have to lead from a place of knowledge. Any knowledge gap in the understanding of technology, or of human competency or global economics derails the ambition of developing countries to succeed in the 21st century.
It is more apparent than ever that what we need is a revisioning of education, science, technology and innovation systems. Technologies should be embraced across communities, irrespective of geospatial locations, class differences and level of development. To hone in on the South African context in particular, the focus should be on skills development and fundamental economic reconstruction. In fact, alongside restructuring our education system, improving connectivity, opening barriers through developing the right skills base and creating effective regulation, the National Planning Commission (NPC) of South Africa estimates that South Africa must grow at 10% annually to absorb the over 700 000 new entrants into the job market.
In the South African context, this is a daunting task that all leaders across spheres face for a multitude of reasons. Economic growth is almost stagnant and was that way long before the start of the pandemic; our wealth inequality is considered the highest in the world and we are faced with a burgeoning unemployment crisis. If we are to stand a chance as a nation, we need decisive leadership, not only from government but at every tier of society. As we confront the ever-changing context, leadership at all levels must address this new world. Will we let intolerance define our world order, or will we build a sense of unity despite the confusion we find ourselves in? Will we maintain the widening of our inequalities, or will we identify solutions to some of our most deep-rooted inequities?
We are learning leadership lessons from the successes and mistakes of the COVID-19 era. If we use the pandemic as a measure of leadership strategies, it must remain unambiguous in our minds what contributed to the successes. How do we adjust to a changing world and our changing conditions, if those in power are ill-equipped? For instance, as we advance and reform our agricultural sector through land reform, do we have enough people who are knowledgeable in the political economy of agriculture to ensure global competitiveness and food security?
As we deal with the problems of our declining industries, we need to understand the problems of technology, automation and human capital to expand the quality of life of our people. This calls for a reimagining of leadership. Are we ensuring that our engineers, scientists, academics and philosophers are at the forefront of leadership positions? This is crucial if we are to close the leadership gaps that exist. This, after all, is also what the SDGs seek to address. The ‘old normal’, if you will, in Africa was marred and scarred by contextual realities that saw significant numbers of our people living far from ideal lives. If we are to enter the ‘new normal’, we need to reinvent and redefine it.
New Normal
In a powerful piece for the Financial Times in 2020 entitled ‘The Pandemic is a Portal’, Arundhati Roy wrote, ‘Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves.’ The carving out of a new development path requires the above to be in place while acknowledging that science, technology, innovation and creativity must be foregrounded in our approaches to the fallout from the pandemic.
There is pressure on us to actively pursue multidisciplinary as well as multi-sectoral partnerships to foster and promote research in our quest for development, with social justice underpinning our agenda. What is evident is that we cannot simply live in this moment and obliterate valuable strides being made in pursuing our SDGs. It would be myopic and dangerous if we were to place these goals on a back burner. It is apparent that we have to stop talking about leadership in the abstract, or in terms of theoretical frameworks. We need to look at leadership in practice and understand that leadership requires layers of complexity to be unpacked.
The time is now for leaders (and here I will place some emphasis on African leaders) to embrace technology and use the 4IR, creativity, and innovation to drive the continent out of poverty and into a better future. This book is about how crucial it is to pursue the SDGs to achieve the development of our society.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
This section contains 17 chapters, with one SDG as the theme of each chapter. The SDGs are:
#1 No Poverty
#2Zero Hunger
#3Good Health and Well-being
#4Quality Education
#5Gender Equality
#6Clean Water and Sanitation
#7Affordable and Clean Energy
#8Decent Work and Economic Growth
#9Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
#10Reduced Inequality
#11Sustainable Cities and Communities
#12Responsible Consumption and Production
#13Climate Action
#14Life Below Water
#15Life on Land
#16Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
#17Partnerships for the Goals
Intelligent machines can end poverty
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL #1 – NO POVERTY
Our technology, our machines, is part of our humanity.
We created them to extend ourselves, and that is what is unique about human beings.
– Ray Kurzweil
In 2009, my collaborators and I registered a patent in the United States for our invention that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to produce an artificial larynx.1 The larynx is a vital human organ in control of our voices. Usually, people lose their voices when the larynx is surgically cut off because of cancer. The MIT Technology Review called this device the ‘Robot Voice’. While most gadgets leave the speaker with robotic or monotonic voices, our machine reconstructed the intended speech through a speech synthesiser to achieve a voice pattern close to the speaker’s original voice. Naturally, we wanted to protect our intellectual property of an invention such as this. We could do this by registering a patent: a commercial privilege given to inventors to protect their designs from infringement or use without the inventors’ consent.
Machine Creativity
While I always understood that there were many feasible patents for people’s inventions – especially with the advent of AI – I never thought that AI could develop patents. In 2020, South Africa became the first country to register a patent created by an AI machine. The invention by DABUS, a so-called ‘creativity machine’, was an interlocking food and beverage container formulated on fractal geometry. Commenting on the patent at the time, McLean Sibanda, an intellectual property expert, said: ‘This patent has been refused elsewhere in the world where patent applications are subjected to substantive examination before being granted. Main grounds have been that AI is not a natural person and thus cannot be an inventor, and as such cannot duly assign its rights to an invention to anyone to apply for a patent.’
As demonstrated in this case, AI is increasingly assuming a human dimension. It is logical then that the laws determining that only human agents can obtain patents are reviewed and revised. Australia is another country that accepts a non-human inventor. The US and the UK both ruled that AI cannot be the inventor of a patent, though intriguingly, US District Judge Leonie M Brinkema admitted that there is scope for AI to one day ‘satisfy accepted meanings of inventorship’. This shift in viewing AI is, in a sense, a manifestation of the Turing test, which suggests that a machine is considered ‘intelligent’ if the human who interacts with it cannot immediately tell whether what they are up against is machine or human. Building on this theory implies that patents can and should be extended to devices.
This is not the first time AI replicates the kind of innovation that has long been regarded as only a human capability. In 2016, Sunspring, an experimental science fiction short film entirely written by AI using neural networks, was released. Oscar Sharp fed the AI system called Benjamin hundreds of sci-fi screenplays from the 1980s and 90s and then instructed it to write its own. In 2018, 1 The Road was the first book authored by an AI machine. In a review for Singularity Hub, Thomas Hornigold wrote, ‘you might see, in the odd line, the flickering ghost of something like consciousness, a deeper understanding.’ Given that it was not human beings who wrote this screenplay and novel but AI machines, is it not rational for the authorship to be ascribed to the machines? If we can easily assign authorship to an AI system, why can’t we attribute a patent to an AI machine?
Economic Singularity
This era of intelligent machines executing production tasks independent of humans ushers economic singularity. Calum Chace defines this as the point when AI ‘renders most of us unemployed, and indeed unemployable because our jobs have been automated.’ To appreciate economic singularity, we should first grasp the concept of singularity.
At the beginning of the 20th century, physics faced an enormous challenge. The thinking of James Clerk Maxwell on the relationship between a magnet and electricity was no longer compatible with the thoughts of Sir Isaac Newton. James Clerk Maxwell’s rationale is so instrumental to modern-day life that we would still be stuck with candles and paraffin lamps instead of electricity without it. To reconcile Maxwell and Newton’s thinkings, the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz proposed correction factors that were nothing but Band-Aids, and this reconciliation failed. In leadership, one has to confront the problems instead of lacklustre patching of contradictions that leave the wound to grow. Accordingly, it is essential to sharpen the contradictions to catalyse the revolution, and this is precisely what Albert Einstein did to reconcile the feud of ideas between Maxwell and Newton. To achieve this, Einstein proposed the Theory of Relativity.
Einstein extended the then existing theory of relativity to explain why objects fall, thus enriching another of Newton’s notions: the idea of universal gravity. Einstein’s thinking on gravity was so mathematically tricky and some of the solutions became so large that they did not make any physical sense, and this is known as singularities. Singularities are known as black holes, even though Einstein himself had misgivings about whether they could exist in reality. Singularities are regions in our universe where the forces are so strong that not even light can escape them. Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, simply put, suggested a point in space-time where the physics laws as we understand them break down and thus suggest the existence of singularities and black holes.
The principal feature of a singularity is unpredictability. Economic singularity indicates a mode of production where machines surpass human intelligence to become the main drivers of economies. Therefore, they can create other devices and produce goods and services with hyper efficiency. As Evan Hurwitz and I argue in our book Artificial Intelligence and Economic Theory, labour will migrate from the human economy to the AI economy until it is no longer economical to migrate labour from humans to AI machines. This may be because the tasks involved are too complicated or too human to be automated.
Advancement of Production
The mode of production is an idea of Karl Marx and comprises the ‘means and relations of production’. The means of production are instruments that are used to produce goods and services. The relations of production are the relationships between labour and the mechanisms used for production. For instance, in the slave mode of production, the enslaver owned the means of production, including the enslaved people, and worked these enslaved people to death to extract surplus value or profit.
In the feudal society, the mode of production involved landowners obtaining profit from the serfs working for shelter and food. For the capitalist mode of production, the working class produce surplus labour or profit, which the owners of capital exploit. Marx borrowed from the French the terms proletariat for the workers and bourgeoisie for owners of capital. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels proposed abolishing private property to deal with exploitation in the workplace. The Soviet bloc tried to abolish private property, but failed spectacularly.
In the economic singularity era, a new mode of production is evolving. In this new mode of production, the means of production is gradually marginalising labour. Consequently, machines are replacing human labour in production, leaving owners of the means of production and AI as the only forces of production. As Jayshree Pandya wrote for Forbes in 2019, ‘the emerging potential of explosive economic growth for nations that adopt these existing and emerging technologies will likely affect the division of income between human labor and capital – challenging and changing the very nature of economic principles that nations are built on today.’ While current trends indicate that growth doubles every 15 years, technology can speed this phenomenon up to at least a quarterly basis. Various thinkers have used different terminology to describe the economic singularity era. Some people have used the phrases hypercapitalism and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Whatever language we may use, the resulting relations of production will progressively be between owners of capital and AI machines used in production. These AI machines will be so complex that they will be able to invent other machines. The AI that registered a patent demonstrates this era. These machines will also be capable of predicting the state of their health and repairing themselves.
This phenomenon should not be downplayed. After all, it entails a redefining of the foundations of human society. As Kevin Morris, Electronic Engineering Journal’s editor-in-chief, aptly asked, ‘If robots automate all of our jobs, what use will the goods and services they produce be without people who can afford them?’ Various solutions can be pivoted in this new period where machines exceed our abilities. Abolishing private property in preference to nationalising the means of production to protect people from being impoverished is not the answer. If we continue on our current trajectory, there is the potential to increase wealth gaps as the owners of capital will continue to accrue wealth.
What is to be done?
Two things should be done. Firstly, these intelligent machines should be taxed. Not taxing either robots or the automation that replaces human labour will result in declining tax revenues. The loss of jobs, for example, could result in widening income inequalities and not imposing penalties for automation or robots could result in a myopic move on the part of policy makers in terms of expanding the tax basket. The call for a ‘robot tax’ is certainly not new. In an interview with Quartz in February 2017, Bill Gates argued in favour of a robot tax, contending that governments should tax companies’ usage of robots to slow down the spread of automation temporarily and fund other types of employment. As Gates put it, ‘Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50 000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed, and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level.’
Gates’ stance came as a surprise to many, given that Microsoft is a leading player in AI technology. In fact, in the same year, EU legislators reflected on a suggestion to tax owners of robots to finance training for workers who lose their jobs due to automation. Secondly, the proceeds of these taxes should be used for a universal income grant. States in the US have already started piloting universal basic incomes. This can be amplified with a robot tax to cover larger populations and evolve beyond the basic. Anything short of this will sink our world into depths of poverty and inequality from which we will not emerge. Strategically using intelligent machines capable of owning patents can reverse this fate and end poverty in society.
The use of technology to combat hunger
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL #2 – ZERO HUNGER
The COVID-19 pandemic has represented a marked regression in development. While the technological advances made have been an astonishing achievement, the reality is that many lived experience has worsened significantly.2 The period between 2020 and 2021 has been characterised by unprecedented job losses and a growing sense of pessimism. This has led to global poverty and a marked increase in global hunger. Most stark in my mind are often hard-to-fathom images of poverty. Skeletal frames and the look of hopelessness and desperation reminiscent of Kevin Carter’s horrifying image of ‘The Struggling Girl’, which depicts a famine-stricken child who collapsed with a vulture eyeing her nearby, are grim reminders of the reality of many. This complex reality is hard for many to comprehend. Many of us have never experienced the painful sensation of extreme hunger pangs, the desperation for food, the listlessness, the discomfort or the sheer weakness that accompanies it. As the Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun described the sensation of starvation in his 1890 novel Hunger, ‘A swarm of tiny noxious animals had bored a way into my inner man and hollowed me out.’
SDGs
In 2015, as the UN developed 17 goals intended to tackle the most serious and significant global challenges of our time, eliminating hunger was among the top priorities. Labelled a ‘blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all’, the SDGs envisaged a more equal and equitable future, and these necessarily entail equitable access to food. Access to a good diet is still reserved for the privileged.
Perhaps one of the most disturbing statistics to emerge from the pandemic has been the marked increase in hunger. Of course, the impact of climate change on reducing food availability and food quality cannot be ignored. Climate change has had a damaging effect on the agriculture sector, mainly when most African economies still heavily depend on it. According to a study by McKinsey & Company, over 60% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa are smallholder farmers, and approximately 23% of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP comes from agriculture. Yet increases in temperatures, precipitation patterns, and extreme weather events disrupt entire industries, reduce food availability, and impact food quality. This is combined with the fastest-rising population in the world, which places more strain on resources.
Rising Population
According to data from the UN, 25% of people on this planet will be African by 2050, growing to 33% by 2100. Petra Hans described the state of food systems in Africa: ‘As the coronavirus crisis unfolded, we started to understand how fragile our food systems are. We saw news stories of food destroyed, milk dumped and crops rotting in the fields while consumers faced empty shelves. Our complicated global supply chains couldn’t adapt fast enough to our changing realities.’
The statistics are certainly damning. In 2020 the UN projected that 690 million people were hungry, indicating an annual increase of 10 million people – amounting to a rise of around 60 million in five years. Perhaps the most devastating realisation is that this indicated a marked regression in progress. Before 2019, global hunger had steadily decreased for a decade. This decline was attributed to two main factors: steady and increasing economic growth and government-sponsored support programmes. Of course, our current context has changed, and these factors are no longer strong enough to keep the momentum going. It is expected that by 2030, at the current growth rate, the global hungry will exceed 840 million people. According to the World Resources Institute, a growing population and shifting diets will necessitate the production of 69% more food calories in 2050 than in 2006.
Even more distressing are the statistics that indicate that redistribution is not enough. As the Institute argues, if we took all the food produced in 2009 and distributed it evenly amongst the global population, it would still not be enough. In fact, 974 more calories per person per day would need to be produced by 2050. Once zoned into Africa, the statistics show an evident distorted level of access in the Global South. Over 250 million of the hungry are in Africa, and this number is growing faster than anywhere else in the world.
South African Perspective
Particularly in South Africa, it is apparent that we are facing a food crisis. According to the Borgen Project, hunger has increased significantly ever since the beginning of the pandemic. Over 23% of South African households faced hunger in the last quarter of 2020. The National Income Dynamics Study – Corona Rapid Mobile Survey (Nids-Cram) – observed that approximately 2.5 million adults and 600 000 children were suffering from ‘perpetual hunger’ or daily hunger in 2021. This is expected when we consider that unemployment has touched historic highs, rendering South Africa among the worst off in the world. By 2020, the UN estimated that one in five South Africans was living in extreme poverty. With the growth numbers stacked against us and an ongoing culture of corruption the country can’t shake off, it seems almost impossible to reverse this trend.
So, how do we even start to address this to ensure that we reverse the devastating increases of the last two years? There are some factors to be considered, but how do we do so healthily and sustainably? Our solutions have to reduce both health worries and the impact of climate change.
Of course, at one level, there are institutional answers in place. For example, as of 2022, at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), R10 million is spent per year on a meal assistance programme that ensures that more than 2 000 students get two decent meals daily. A further R600 000 is spent on an additional feeding scheme for needy students. The university is conscious of hunger’s devastating impact on students, who can often not perform academically. There are similar feeding schemes at other universities and some primary and secondary schools.
At UJ we also expanded our food gardens to increase food production to combat student hunger: we must use our vast spaces as agricultural production sites to fight hunger. The government has also advocated for this at schools that use the government-sponsored National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP).
The NSNP provides one nutritious meal to all learners in poorer primary and secondary schools and reaches around 9 million students. Organisations such as the Peninsula School Feeding Association in the Western Cape and the African Children’s Feeding Scheme in Gauteng complement this initiative.
This is not a novel approach: for over a century, feeding schemes have been part of the fabric of our schooling system. However, this is not a blanket solution and only addresses the needs of our current students. We must focus on comprehensive global solutions. If we think about more extensive interventions, then the 4IR technologies certainly play a part in addressing food insecurity. Sir Charles Godfray from Oxford University argued in a 2019 World Economic Forum (WEF) white paper, ‘Many of these potentially disruptive alternatives enabled by the Fourth Industrial Revolution come with big promises – from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to transforming nutrition and health.’ Global Food Security shows that countries such as Singapore, Finland, Germany and Japan – some of the leading countries in food security – have emphasised technological solutions. This phenomenon has guided the prioritisation of engineering, technologically-driven agricultural practices, and economic principles. With Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean the most impacted by global hunger, technology can transplant solutions to these areas.
Technology
For instance, AI can combat disease and pests in the agricultural sector. At the same time, drones and other robots equipped with computerised vision can collect data from the farms’ existing crops. The South African start-up Aerobotics builds drone technology used in the agricultural, logistical, and mining industries. This lets farmers scan their farms and provide analytics to manage their farms more efficiently, reduce costs and increase yields. Its AI system supports farmers in optimising the utilisation of farms and decreasing monthly water, fertiliser and diesel costs.
There are more examples. The ThirdEye project in Kenya uses RGB cameras and near-infrared cameras installed on drones to survey and diagnose plants for pests, diseases, water stress and nutrient deficiencies. IBM developed an AI-powered app to test the quality of their soil and water quality on location in real time. The AgroPad is a paper device with a chip inside that can operate a chemical analysis of a water or soil sample in under ten seconds: a farmer puts his sample on one side of the card, and on the other side, a set of circles indicates the test results. In California, Ceres Imaging has mapped fields to capture colour, thermal and infrared images of farms which are then analysed with AI to ascertain whether crops are finding sufficient water. This technology assists farmers to decide when to plant, water, spray and harvest their crops.
There is certainly scope for AI systems to flag food shortages. Elsewhere, we see the emergence of complementary protein sources as substitutes for traditional animal-based food. For instance, meat can be manufactured in laboratories without using live animals. Studies suggest that meat consumption releases greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. There is also scope to create products that partially replace meat. A 2019 report by global consultancy company AT Kearney predicted that by 2040, most meat would no longer come from dead animals. This indicates how we can pivot sustainable solutions that address climate change.
As Mark Caine wrote for the World Economic Forum, ‘Improving the food system is critically important to achieving several SDGs, but it is just one of many ways that AI is helping to usher in the more equitable, sustainable world that the SDGs envision.’
Conclusion
What is apparent is that, to get back on track with the SDGs, technological solutions have to be adopted quickly. Solutions such as funding schemes and aid programmes are just Band-Aids for what can be called a national and indeed a global crisis. There is a basic necessity to pivot long-term and sustainable solutions, which should be infused with the technological leaps we have made. After all, as the biologist Norman Borlaug put it, ‘The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all humankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world.’
Good health and well-being are human rights
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL #3
– GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING