The trillion dollar nuclear program proposed for South Africa is constantly under a cloud, which was lifted in Davos yesterday. Alec Hogg was in a poorly attended press briefing with Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersen but the outcome lifted spirits. The ministry said the deal is not a go and numbers still need to be checked, which has Alec sleeping better. The other highlight was a discussion with former Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. She’s driving an initiative that’s targeting fully entrenched gender equality globally by 2030. This is day 4 of Alec Hogg’s Davos Diary. – Stuart Lowman
I’m Alec Hogg and here’s Davos Diary: Day 4. Well, it is Friday. We’re coming to the end of the World Economic Forum and once again, a pretty busy day.
It was interesting to start off from a South African perspective, with a press conference at which I think there were two journalists and yet, it was the most enlightening and uplifting of the press conferences that I managed to attend in the whole series. It was with the Energy Minister, Tina Joemat-Pettersson who was absolutely forthright in saying that the nuclear deal is not a go. The numbers still have to be checked. She says, “You have no idea what the numbers are yet but it will go through the same process that the renewables program has gone through.” Now those of you who know about the energy equation in South Africa will know that our renewables program is one of the most admired in the world. The foreign investors are flocking around to try and get a slice of that action. It’s been very well handled so if the same people who are handling that are going to be looking at the nuclear program, I’m going to sleep better tonight.
My highlight today was in interview with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the former Deputy President of South Africa who’s now one of the top five at the United Nations. She’s the Executive Director on Women’s Affairs for the U.N. and she’s been applying her doctorate in mobile technology, together with leveraging the U.N. brand and her considerable contacts to get women’s equality (or gender equality as its better known) on the table. Indeed, she’s now recruited ten companies who, between them, have committed that by the year 2020 half their boards and half of their top management will be women. This is a huge breakthrough. Those are ten multinational companies, including the likes of Twitter, Accor Hotels, and Barclays Bank and those multinationals (she hopes) will be able to pioneer something that the rest of the world will continue with. Her target is to have gender equality fully entrenched in the world in 2030.
This is Alec Hogg with the Davos Diary: Day 4.