FOREWORD BY THE ACTING CEO SONWABILE MANCOTYWA

The National Heritage Council (NHC) has just emerged from a very critical strategic workshop whose fundamental objective was to address the following goals:

• Formulation of a strategic framework addressing issues of structural and functional analysis of the entire heritage sector. This included policy, legislative, institutional environment and the geographical spread of institutions.

• Gap analysis

• Definition of measurement parameters per functional area or sub-sector.

• Formulation of the statement of intervention by sub-sector

• Description of the desired outcomes and societal impact.

• Formulation of the value charter.

• Statement on the value proposal and offering.

• Configuration of the required institutional capacity and competencies of the NHC and the related institutions.

• Profiling of key personnel required to carry out the implementation of the

strategy results.

• Identification of key special events and the national heritage calendar.

This session was a resounding success taking into consideration the results that have been achieved against the stated objectives. The first meeting of the NHC that took place concomitantly with the launch of the institution marked a very important step in the history of this organization. This meeting identified critical elements that ware necessary for strategy formulation of a strategy of the NHC. It stimulated a debate around the role and the mandate of the organization.

The Kopanong meeting which was also consultative in nature observed that the NHC cannot function in line with its mandate without a comprehensive strategy which is a necessary planning tool that becomes a map and a strategic guiding and basic foundation of an organization. This meeting was acutely sensitive to the fact that a strategy is not an event nor is it a once off incident. A strategy is a necessary dynamic process of organizational development addressing different facets of life of an organization. It is by no means static. It cans be a painstaking and sometimes bureaucratic exercise. The inaugural meeting of the NHC set clear goals and targets for the NHC during the setting up phase.

When the DAC employed services of a project manager with a mandate of setting up the NHC it predicted that that process would take a period of one month to complete. I am happy to report that within a period of less that three months from the time of the launch almost eighty percent of the work of the setting up phase has been completed and the remaining twenty percent that entails recruitment of key personnel will be completed once organizational structure approved. This achievement is attributed to the commitment and support that I have enjoyed from the two temporal staff members in particular and the PA.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank members of the entire council for the effort they have devoted in mapping out the road ahead. We have a mandate of the Council and now is the time to implement it carefully without losing the original goals and a strategic trust of the NHC.

I thank you.