Women Leadership and Policy in the Energy Sector Case Study

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Solving South Africa's Energy Resource Crisis

Introduction

The subject of this case study is the role of women in power in South Africa’s energy sector. This case study will answer the question of whether or not South Africa’s first female appointed Minsiter of Minerals and Energy, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, is responsible for the ejection of the foreign national powers which previously controlled South Africa’s energy sector. There is a considerable amount of evidence which suggests that Mlambo-Ngcuka had an influential role in this occurrence. Nonetheless, it must be examined in scope and in the context of the displacement of these predominantly male foreign nationals from controlling South Africa’s energy supply.

Therefore, the decision point of this case study is based around the actions that Mlambo-Ngcuka might have taken which produced this result. Not long after she came to power she was responsible for creating a Women’s Energy Group which helped to integrate women into South Africa’s Department of Energy. This case study, then, will examine the contentious viewpoint that the founding of this group—and the subsequent action it took under the auspices of its female Minister of Minerals and Energy—was the decision point resulting in South Africa’s energy section being controlled by those endemic to this country, as opposed to being controlled by foreign nationals.

As such, the subsequent pages will detail the circumstances around the appointing of Mlambo-Ngcuka to Minster of Minerals and Energy, and those contributing to her forming the foregoing Women’s Energy Group. More importantly, the paper will present vivid details about the efforts of that group to oust the presence of foreign nationals from this area of South African commerce. It will also give due consideration to Mlambo-Ngcuka’s objectives once she assumed this position, as well as those of the group she implemented. Of equal value is the consequence of the efforts of the women appointed to the Women’s Energy Group and their efforts.

Thus, this paper will also provide details about the most prominent of these contributions which may or may not have resulted in the elimination of foreigners from controlling the resources of South Africa’s Department of Energy. Retrospectively, the research in this paper will also analyze the various possibilities and constraints which affected the work of Mlambo-Ngcuka and her women’s organization as it sought to deliver South Africa solidarity in its energy department. The author of this document will evaluate all of these various facets of Mlambo-Ngcuka’s tenure as Minister of Minerals and Energy of South Africa within the context of the available evidence, taking care to carefully scrutinize that evidence for various biases. Lastly, this document will identify the specific measures which resulted in the ousting of foreign nationals from South Africa’s energy department, and elucidate whether or not they are applicable to other female-oriented groups in other locations including the United States (Caiazza, 2008, p.106).

Mlambo-Ngcuka’s History

As the principal decision-maker examined within this paper, Mlambo-Ngcuka has a varied and detailed professional and pedagogical history worthy of examination to properly understand her role within the context of female authority in South Africa. Her career path has presently led her to the title of Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of United Nations Women with the United Nations (UN Women, 2018). The obvious focus on womanhood and female empowerment implicit to this title and her present work with the United Nations is merely the latest manifestation of her efforts in this direction spanning several decades.

Born on November 3 of 1955, Mlambo-Ngcuka began her career as a school teacher. However, she evinced tendencies towards the empowerment of women in positions of authority rather early on as her career flourished. In 1983 she became the inaugural president of the Natal Organization of Women, which was affiliated with the United Democratic Front (South Africa History Online, 2011). One of the common themes with her role in this position which is emblematic of that of her entire career was the issue of gender equality. Prior to her appointment as South Africa’s Minister of Minerals and Energy in 1999, Mlambo-Ngcuka served on the board of the Women’s Development Foundation, was youth director for the Young Women’s Christian Association, and held a management consultant position at Cape Town’s Phumelela Services, where “she was responsible for promoting race and gender sensitive organizational development” (South Africa History Online, 2011) among other duties. Clearly, her roles in each of these positions demonstrate a commitment to female empowerment in positions of authority within South Africa.

The Political and Economic Climate

Before Mlambo-Ngcuka took office as the Minister of Minerals and Energy, there were a number of distinct developments taking place within South Africa’s political and economic climate which enabled her to achieve what she accomplished in this role. Foremost of those was the 1998 White Paper on Energy Policy, which explicitly included requirements for native South Africans to expand their involvement in the political and economic developments occurring in this country.

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This white paper included stipulations for “meaningful participation in the industry by South Africans who were excluded in the past through the general racial political dispensation, social inequalities and provisions governing the industry, specifically” (Energy.gov, 2018).

The true valuation of this white paper and its decree that South Africans—as opposed to foreign nationalists looking to exploit the country—should benefit from these resources is realized when one acknowledges the specific resources involved. South Africa is symbolic of Africa as a whole in this regard because it has an abundance of natural resources which are enviable to other parts of the world. With native South Africans and the government that supports them empowered by these resources, the country had the potential to considerably better itself as a developing nation. According to the white paper:

“Fossil fuels, such as coal, uranium, liquid fuels, and gas play a central role in the socio-economic development of our country, while simultaneously providing the necessary infrastructural economic base for the country to become an attractive host for foreign investments in the energy sector,” (Department of Minerals and Energy, 1998, p. 2).

This fact is tremendously important for understanding the context in which Mlambo-Ngcuka came to power as the Minister of Minerals and Energy. The very country of South Africa was at that time clamoring for more sway over the natural resources which it should have possessed by right. In fact, in the previously mentioned white paper the very department which Mlambo-Ngcuka was in charge of was attempting “to set the sustainable presence, ownership or control by historically disadvantaged South Africans of a quarter of all facets of the liquid fuels industry or plans to achieve this as a milestone to trigger the substantive re-regulation of the petroleum and liquid fuels industry in South Africa” (Energy.gov, 2018). The re-regulation of these resources was perhaps the impetus for this movement. However, an extremely vital component of this impetus involved giving South Africans ownership over, initially, a portion of those resources. Therefore, Mlambo-Ngcuka was appointed Minister of Minerals and Energy at the very moment the department was attempting to assert much more ownership of these resources than it previously had.

The Decision Point

The decision point which is the focal point of this case study is not the appointment of Mlambo-Ngcuka in a leadership position for South Africa’s minerals and energy department. The decision point was what exactly she would do to achieve the objectives specified in the aforementioned white paper. Retrospectively, it appears that the formulation of a task force which eventually helped to expel foreign nationals from hoarding South Africa’s mineral and energy resources was the turning point in this case study, and a testament to the efficacy of Mlambo-Ngcuka’s leadership proclivities. However, both this assessment and the decision point supporting it are contentious because as recently mentioned above, there was already a political and economic climate in place to achieve this same objective. One can therefore argue either side of this issue: that the action taken by Mlambo-Ngcuka in forming the task force was the catalyst for claiming South Africa’s minerals and resources from the power of foreign nationals, or that the previous political and economic climate was responsible for this situation.

This decision point became even more disputatious when one considers some of the ancillary factors involved. The decision maker, of course, was Mlambo-Ngcuka; the decision was how to best fulfill the desired aims of the white paper for giving South Africa control over its fossil fuel resources. Fulfilling those aims was unequivocally the objective of the decision maker in this instance. However, when one views this decision in the context of the additional actors involved in it, the worth of Mlambo-Ngcuka’s task force team is undoubtedly called into question. As mentioned earlier in this paper, there were other industry proponents who shared the same interests of Mlambo-Ngcuka’s department. These most eminently included SAPIA and AMEF, although one could also make the case that virtually every native South African had a vested interest….....

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