The 2011 – 2016 National Skills Development Strategy provides a blueprint for leadership and management interventions in South Africa. Most, if not all curricula for formal or non-formal educational plans are structured around this Strategy. A number of such programmes exist in institutions of higher learning, in-service training service providers, Department of Education, etc. Aspirant leaders and managers, as well as the highly experienced who need to upgrade their knowledge and skills in the field, can approach education and training institutions registered with the Department of Education and other relevant educational authorities to access such programmes.

Being “defective” does not only relate to faulty electronics and related devices. In Leadership Platform speak, such leadership is also referred to as flawed leadership (www.leadershipplatform.com). A flawed leadership is the kind of leadership where critical areas like decisiveness and confidence-building are often ignored. It is the leadership that is compromised in that the person given the responsibility has many “loyalty debts” to repay using the leadership power. This could also be the kind of leadership that had to do lots of horse-trading to assume the leadership position. “Faulty” leaderships fail to take decisive actions when called upon to do.

South Africa has a way of bringing public and private sector together for governance efficiency through public-private sector partnership to unlock maximum potential in essential areas of service delivery. A number of government departments collaborate with institutions of higher learning for capacity building and training programmes to upgrade governance skills, especially for local government efficiency. In 2009/10 the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs collaborated with Batseta Consulting for a model for skills deployment for efficiency at local government. DBSA, in partnership with CoGTA set-up Vulindela Academy to support the Turnaround Strategy for Local Government through finance management and other scarce skills programmes.

Malnutrition results from having an unbalanced diet. The condition is common amongst children and it affects their intellectual development. According to a UNICEF Report, more than 20 million children around the world suffer from severe malnutrition with 300,000 of them hailing from the Horn of Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa over 40 percent of the children are malnourished. The main causes of malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa are high levels of poverty, poor government policies and drought. All these have contributed to limited food stocks. When a community has high number of childhood deaths, it has had a knock-on effect in the sense that there are fewer hands to do agricultural work and so agricultural productivity declines. It is time for governments and legislators to make political commitments to reduce malnutrition. Scaling up nutrition in Africa requires political commitment to demand the allocation of resources, high impact interventions in health targeting mothers and children, programs in food security, agriculture, water, hygiene and sanitation and social protection, which can all be done through the parliaments.

The campaign to celebrate 20 years of democracy and to encourage eligible voters to vote in numbers in the country’s 2014 general elections is in full swing. A number of initiatives have been introduced to create hype for South Africans to play part in the 2014 historic democracy milestone. Freedom Fridays campaign is the notable initiative that will certainly instil courage for South Africans to raise the national flag high for the 20th year celebrations of democracy as well to play part in the 2014 general elections. President Jacob Zuma, when addressing the nation on the 2013 Freedom Day challenged South Africans to walk tall and be proud of the achievements since the April 27 1994 elections.

Painting. Sculpture. Photography. Filmmaking. Architecture. Crafts. These are forms of art that are categorised as Visual Arts in the Heritage, Arts & Culture sector. In modern terminology these artistic forms also embrace fine arts as well as applied and decorative arts. Generally, art in South Africa is understood as performing arts, i.e. music, dance, theatre and/or drama. Visual arts are often relegated to secondary forms of art. In fact visual art is often interpreted as only paintings and statuettes. It is therefore critical that resources are invested to popularise visual art as integral part of heritage, arts and culture industry.