Lunch With Ambassador Rasool- Our Conversation

Lunch with Ambassador Rasool was quite enlightening. He shared with me the appointment of Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma as chairperson of the African Union and what it means for the continent and South Africa (S.A). Now, just like many S.A leaders we able to fight against the apartheid regime in the past, the battle today is to create peace and to start a more constructive dialogue between African countries on the future of the continent. The election of Dr Zuma also comes with its challenges: in Africa, not all countries favour S.A and some view it as a country which is power hungry and seeking to control and dominate Africa. Though faced with even more serious African continent problems, Nkosazana Zuma must be aware of the perceptions other African countries have of S.A and we as a nation need to find ways to overcome them. He also touched on the issue that Africa has 60% of the worlds arable land and how we can start to be a food provider to the rest of the world, instead of importing our food like we do now. Our government still faces the issue of addressing land redistribution and increasing the number of black farmers in S.A. Years back, the government had set itself a target of 30% land must be redistributed by 2015, but looking at the current progress, the Ambassador said this date might need to be shifted. Challenges government faces in land redistribution is that when wanting to buy land, many owners inflate their prices and some simply refuse to sell. Not wanting to take drastic measures like other African countries did in getting back land, the government is still looking for other ways to encourage land owners to share some or sell all their land. We also discussed the problem of the huge youth unemployment rate in S.A and the possible dangers of it. To avoid actions such as the Arab Spring, S.A government needs to create employment opportunities for young people. An interesting point he raised while we were discussing youth is the misalignment between graduate qualifications and the skills and knowledge needed by the economy. He said that sometimes it’s not that someone is unemployed, but is actually unemployable. And this is the case for many of South African youth.