Strengthening a Nation’s Resilience in Times of Adversity

Mr Adrian Gore: Founder & Group Chief Executive, Discovery Health
Dr Beth Vale: Applied Anthropologist & Public Health Consultant, Percept
Prof William Gumede: Founder & Executive Chairman, Democracy Works Foundation
Dr Terence McNamee: Director, TM Global Advisory

The last 2 years have been exceptionally difficult not only for South Africa, but for the world at large. The country emerged from the devastating COVID-19 pandemic only to be plunged into back into instability in the July 2021 looting, and this was followed by the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war. South Africa’s unemployment is at its worst levels yet, the state of politics does not inspire confidence, and there’s no end in sight to load-shedding. This has resulted in society living in perpetual anxiety and continuously diminishing hope. The dialogue addressed resilience in this seemingly unending adversity. The panellists discussed; how do we frame the failures that we see around us? How do we halt situations that have resulted in society needing to be resilient? How we relate to each other as society, in order to thrive? Is South Africa’s situation as dire as we believe, or is the information we are consuming leading to the feelings of helplessness? How do we collectively strengthen the nation’s resilience to mitigate psychological and socio-economic threats?

In her discussion, Dr Beth Vale suggested to the audience that it is imperative to reframe the discourse with regards to the failures that we are seeing in South Africa, and to ask themselves who is failing, and how they can be held accountable. Adding on to this, Prof William Gumede relayed the importance of strengthening agency in communities in order to build resilience. An important note, from Adrian Gore, was for South Africa to relook at the way the country is portrayed in the media, and to consider whether the doom and gloom that they see is not a self-fulfilling prophesy, as statistics point out that South Africa is indeed doing better in some aspects, than is portrayed. A diverse panel that is extremely knowledgeable in their fields, ensured that the dialogue was thorough and the audience was left with a wealth of knowledge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3EqNCbR88Y&t=2116s