Prof Lourens Swanepoel (DSI-NRF SARChI Chair) and Prof Jabulani Makhubele (Director – Research and Innovation) of the University of Venda formed part of a South African delegation that attended a one-day workshop on the development of a Mozambique-South Africa Science, Technology, and Innovation Plan of Action 2025-2027. The meeting was held at Maputo’s Mozambique Science, Technology and Higher Education offices. Ms Vinny Pillay co-chaired the workshop, South African acting Deputy Director General (aDDG): International Cooperation and Resources (ICR), and Mr Alberto Armindo Tonela, National Director of Planning, Statistics, and Cooperation for Mozambique.
On photo L-R: Mr Kagiso Moloto, Deputy Director: Africa Bilateral Cooperation, DSI; Dr Khavharendwe Rambau, Acting Director: Transport Fuels and Renewable Energy, DSI; Ms Vinny Pillay, Acting Deputy Director General: International Cooperation and Resources, DSI; Prof Lourens Swanepoel, DSI/NRF SARChi Chair, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Agriculture, University of Venda; Mr. Alberto Armindo Tonela, National Director of Planning, Statistics, and Cooperation, Mozambique; Ms. Rachida Aligy Ussen Mamade, Deputy National Director: Planning, Statistics, and Cooperation, Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Republic of Mozambique; Prof Jabulani Makhubele, Director: Research and Innovation, University of Venda
Within the framework of the Agreement between the Government of South Africa and the Gov-ernment of Mozambique on Scientific and Technological cooperation signed on 07 July 2006, both the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) of the Republic of South Africa and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (MCTES) of the Republic of Mozambique developed and agreed on this Mozambique – South Africa Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Plan of Action from 2024/26 to 2027/28.
Both the DSI and MCTES endeavour to utilise the O.R. Tambo Africa Research Chairs Initiative (ORTARChI) and institutional collaborations as instruments to implement this Plan of Action. The two sides will also explore student and researcher mobility, Joint exchange programmes, joint pub-lications, joint Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) projects and the twinning of universi-ties as modalities for scientific and technological collaborations. Both sides will deliberately include the private sector across the thematic areas.
South Africa – Mozambique Plan of Action on Science, Technology, and Innovation Cooperation 2025 to 2027 included several thematic areas, which include STI Policy Exchanges and STI Policy advice; Joint Research Management Programme; Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS); Biotechnol-ogy and Biosciences; Astronomy and High-Performance Computing; Renewable Energy; Women in science. Linking it to SADC WISETO; Institutional collaboration and twinning of Research Chairs and Innovation.
Within the Institutional collaboration and twinning of Research Chairs, several initiates will be ex-plored by Prof Swanepoel (DSI/NRF Sarchi UNIVEN) and Prof Almeida Sitoe (ORTARChI Eduardo Mondlane University), which include: i) Drought and Climate Change: both sides could explore ecosystem-based responses to drought and climate along the Kruger National Park and the Lim-popo National Park; ii) Food and Water Security: for both humans and life stock including research around conflicts between humans and animals; iii) Agri-Food and Nutrition: Centres of Excellence have been established in some Universities in Mozambique in these areas, and there is an oppor-tunity to collaborate with South Africa in these areas.
The South African and Mozambique delegation
Delegates in a workshop
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