Gauteng unveils strategic think tank

Johannesburg, 10 Sept 2008

The Gauteng Provincial Government is establishing a think tank with a R12 million budget to help it benchmark its performance and make strategic decisions on investments, including on ICT.

Provincial government spokesman Thabo Masebe says the initiative will be called the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) and will commence work tomorrow.

Masebe says the GCRO is a partnership between Gauteng, the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

"We need such co-operation between government and academic institutions to help us, as the government, to better deliver on the goals we set to make Gauteng a better place to live in," Masebe says.

The GCRO will be headed by a board that includes representatives from the two universities, the Gauteng government and local municipalities.

UJ deputy vice-chancellor for research, innovation and advancement professor Adam Habib will chair the venture, with Wits deputy vice-chancellor for research professor Belinda Bozzoli deputising.

Masebe says global city regions become competitive because they make good, strategic decisions on how to mediate priorities. "Even very rich city regions have to make decisions on where to spend money and this is why they fund observatories that can help inform prioritisation," he says.

"Establishing a global niche means dedicating resources to some initiatives over others (for example, investing in port or IT infrastructure or giving special support to the development of a particular sector such as design in Milan or banking in London).

"Understanding the local economy, labour market and resource base only happens with sustained investment in basic data generation and fundamental research. Gauteng has defined one of its comparative advantages as access to the wider African market, yet virtually no data is collected on this driver of Gauteng's opportunities, though it is an area that academics are trying to develop.

"Catching global economic investment waves means being ahead of the game and getting the city region positioned by building the necessary human capacity and infrastructure in advance of other places," says Masebe, citing Bangalore taking a lead in ICT in India as an example.