SAGA Progress Report-2004-Annex-Research-South Africa

SAGA
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SAGA PROGRESS REPORT (12/03-12/04) &
UPCOMING WORKPLAN (1/05-12/05)

ANNEX

II. RESEARCH
D. SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa: Previous Activities

Our strategy in South Africa has been to work to strengthen our partner institution, DPRU’s (Development Policy Research Unit of the University of Cape Town) excellent national profile and to raise its international profile. To this end we are supporting DPRU in its interactions with South African institutions, and helping to bring out volumes with the DPRU at the helm and support international events hosted by DPRU.

Volume on Poverty in Post Apartheid South Africa

This edited volume, with contributions by many of South Africa’s leading economists working on this topic, has been coming together this last six months. We now have most of the papers (listed in earlier reports) in first draft, and some of them will be presented at the Africa conference in October (see below). The volume will be edited by Haroon Bhorat, Director of DPRU, and Ravi Kanbur. See Attachment 2 for a tentative table of contents.

Conference on “African Development and Poverty Reduction: the Macro-Micro Linkage”

This conference was jointly organized by DPRU, Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) and Cornell, with support from USAID under the SAGA program. It included papers selected from an international Call for Papers. The conference was on October 13- 15 and the program is available at:

http://www.commerce.uct.ac.za/dpru/dpruconference2004/Programme.htm

The opening keynote address was given by John Page, the new Chief Economist of the Africa Region of the World Bank. A glance at the papers presented, over forty of which can be downloaded from

http://www.commerce.uct.ac.za/dpru/dpruconference2004/DownloadPapers.htm

indicate the high average quality. In fact, the Journal of African Economies has agreed to publish an edited symposium issue from the papers presented at the conference, the editors being Haroon Bhorat, Stephen Hanival (Director of TIPS), and Ravi Kanbur. There may also be an additional edited volume published by an academic press.

Course on Poverty Analysis for staff of National Treasury and the Department of Social Development

DPRU and Cornell Faculty provided the course. Further details on this event are given in the Technical Assistance Section. Suffice to note here that our research relationship with DPRU is the base on which this course is founded.

Interactions with various South African Policy Making Institutions

Ravi Kanbur gave a public lecture, organized by the USAID mission in South Africa, on “Growth, Inequality and Poverty: Some Hard Questions.” The lecture was chaired by the USAID Director in South Africa, and was attended by senior South African officials, including the Director General of the Treasury.

Ravi Kanbur led a seminar on the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) of NEPAD. The seminar was chaired by the Regional Director of UNDP, and the lead discussant was Chris Stals, former Governor of the Central Bank of South Africa, and now a member of the Eminent Africans APRM Panel.

Ravi Kanbur continued his role as advisor and peer reviewer for the Fiscal Finance Commission, a statutory body that reports to Parliament.

South Africa: Planned Activities

The next six months will see a completion of the first phase of activities started under SAGA. In particular, effort will be devoted to editing the volume Poverty in Post Apartheid South Africa and the volumes coming out of the October 2004 conference.

We will also begin discussing the next phase of activities, with a focus on expanding the hugely successful Poverty Analysis course to the Provinces and to Historically Disadvantaged Universities.

Ravi Kanbur’s interactions with South Africa policy making institutions will continue as the demand arises.

Additional research for South Africa: Information on distance learning that includes proposed activities in South Africa is included in the section, “Community Education and Distance Learning”.

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