REGISTER HERE

Climate change and the transition to lower emissions will impact workers and communities across multiple value chains. In our previous events, we explored both vulnerability and opportunities for jobs resilience in five key sectors: Coal, Petroleum-based Transport, Tourism, Metals, and Agriculture.

This learning event provides an overview of the project, and then explores the possible use of active labour market policies for farm labourers who may be impacted by climate change. It will examine the effectiveness of weather and climate information; as well as ecotourism vulnerability, and the diffusion technologies for small-scale farmers.

The discussion will highlight adaptation pathways and their implications for livelihoods and resilience. You are invited to a learning event where this research will be presented and discussed.

Funded by the UK-PACT programme

In the third quarter of 2025, monitoring added 18 projects to the Tracker, of which eight reported investment values. The total announced value amounted to R37.8 billion. Projects were registered across services, utilities, mining and manufacturing. Employment opportunities were recorded from two projects – 780 jobs from the Marula Green Power Solar project and 20 jobs from Hexing Group’s ZLink factory. In addition, 17 pre-existing projects were updated.

Kealeboga Baikgaki is an economist at TIPS. She holds a Master of Commerce in Economics degree (With distinction) from the North-West University. She is passionate about student development, demonstrated though her roles as a supplemental instruction facilitator, student assistant and serving on the Golden Key International Honour Society’s executive committee. She has previously worked at the North West Provincial Treasury in the Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Analysis unit. Her interests are economic research, energy security, sustainable economic development and policy analysis.

This paper situates the current debate on Reform of the WTO in the context of the history of the Reform agenda led by the United States and the European Union in the WTO since the collapse of the Doha Round of negotiations in 2008.

Download or read online: WTO Reform and Trump 2.0: Will plurilaterals rebuild or fragment the global trade regime? The road to Yaoundé and beyond MC14

Following earlier research on the employment vulnerability assessment and sector jobs resilience plans, further in-depth research has been done on specific challenges and opportunities in each of the five impacted sectors as well as on cross cutting issues. This research was presented at a learning event on 31 March 2026 for papers on: Options for the taxi industry transition to EVs; The possible impact of a shift to EVs for mechanics; Where to for platinum group metals?; Decarbonising the mining value chain; and The role of Social and Labour Plans in the Just Transition.

Introduction and Welcome: – Dr Saul Levin (TIPS)

SESSION ONE

Nokwanda Maseko (TIPS) - Taxi industry transition to EVs

Dylan Kirsten (TIPS) - Supporting automotive mechanics in South Africa’s low-carbon transition: employment vulnerability and active labour market policy response

Muhammed Patel (TIPS) - Mechanism for a Just Transition in South Africa’s coal and metals value chains

SESSION TWO

Akhona Myataza and Sakhile Ndlovu (TIPS) - Identifying and evaluating measures to decarbonising the mining value chain

Lesego Moshikaro (TIPS) Platinum Group Metals in transition

Resources

This research builds on research conducted in 2020: This comprises a main report: National Employment Vulnerability Assessment: Analysis of potential climate-change related impacts and vulnerable groups; the SJRP Toolbox: Summary for policy makers; and proposals for five value chains that seem particularly likely to be affected: coal, metals, petroleum-based transport, agriculture and tourism. Available here: Sector Jobs Resilience Plans  

This research was funded by the UK-PACT programme

13 - 16 April 2026 - TIPS Office: 234 Lange Street, Nieuw Muckleneuk, PTA

Price: R16 000 vat included (per delegate) and $1000 ( for delegates from developed countries)

Acceptance deadline: 3 April 2026

The economy is a system. Disturbances to one part, which might be caused by policies or by unanticipated shocks, can have consequences for other parts. Responses to these knock-on effects may create feed backs, enhancing or constraining the initial impact. Understanding these system wide effects can be important for policy design, since they determine how the costs and benefits of a policy are distributed throughout the economy.

Most graduates of economics programmes have in their toolbox microeconomic methods, for analysing the behaviour of individual agents and markets, and macroeconomic methods, for analysing the economy as a whole. These are powerful tools, but the latter do not give the detailed view of the economy that policy analysts often want, while the usual ceteris paribus assumption of microeconomics can often be inappropriate when the shocks are large.

Input-output and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models provide tools to examine the economy as a whole while also incorporating sufficient detail to address impacts on sectors and income distribution. Wassily Leontief published his first input-output paper in 1936. Leif Johansen published his pioneering CGE model in 1960. However, although there was substantial work developing both these approaches in the decades before 1990, they both remained rather niche approaches until the rise of cheap computing power and modern data.

Since 2000 there has been an explosion in the literature using these tools, extending the range of their application. The methods, either by themselves or in conjunction with models from other disciplines, are being brought to bear on a wide and expanding range of issues of concern to the modern world: climate change, renewable energy, AI, water scarcity, regional integration, trade in value added, value chains, the causes and consequences of macroeconomic fluctuations.

Approach

The workshop will introduce participants to the databases on which economywide models are based: supply and use tables, input-output tables and social accounting matrices. It will then cover the fundamental methods of multiplier analysis and illustrate how they can be extended to a range of issues. The teaching method focuses on hands-on practical application. All models are implemented in Microsoft Excel.

Upon completion, participants will possess both the theoretical foundation and practical expertise necessary for linear economy-wide impact analysis. The workshop also offers valuable preparation for process managers required to interpret such analyses, and provides essential groundwork for those wishing to pursue computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling.

A subsequent CGE modelling workshop will be available for interested participants.

Course facilitators

Rob Davies is a Zimbabwean economist who lives in Harare. He previously served as Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Zimbabwe. His academic career includes roles as a visiting professor at Swarthmore University in the United States, a visiting senior lecturer at SOAS in the United Kingdom, and a visiting research fellow at the Human Science Research Council (HSRC) in Pretoria, South Africa. He is a director of the Trade Law Centre (tralac), a public benefit organisation based in Cape Town. He has published extensively and collaborated with organisations such as the World Bank, South African National Treasury, TIPS, UNU-WIDER, Global Trade Analysis Project, and the International Food Policy Research Institute. His recent work uses Computable General Equilibrium models to address policy issues such as automation, labour market polarisation, carbon taxes, electricity shortages in South Africa, climate change in Zimbabwe, the green economy in Vietnam, and COVID impacts.

Dirk van Seventer is a New Zealand-based applied economist specialising in macroeconomics, trade and labour market economics, multisector input-output and Computable General Equilibrium modelling. After completing his Masters in Economics at the Rijksuniversiteit van Groningen in the Netherlands, he moved to South Africa where he worked as economic researcher at the University of Stellenbosch during the 1980s, the Development Bank of Southern Africa during the early 1990s and TIPS in the late 1990s. In early 2000 he followed his family to New Zealand where he worked at the Department of Labour for six years as a Principal Information Analyst. Currently, Dirk is an associate economist with the consulting firm Infometrics in Wellington, New Zealand and a modelling expert with Genesis Analytics Consulting in Johannesburg. He has published widely in South African and international journals. and has contributed to building numerous Social Accounting Matrices for several countries in Southern Africa and Asia.

For more information contact Rozale Sewduth at Rozale@tips.org.za 

Main Bulletin:  The Real Economy Bulletin - Fourth Quarter 2025

Sebenzile Hlatshwayo is a Master of Commerce student in Economics at the University of Zululand. She is actively engaging in the academic space and has presented her research at platforms such as the Economic Society of South Africa (ESSA), the UKZN Macroeconomic Research Unit, and the Mbali International Conference. She has participated in Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA) workshops and ERSA winter schools. Her research focus areas include climate change, sustainable development growth, and macroeconomic uncertainty. She also showcased her analytical prowess in the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Investment research competition, earning a Certificate of outstanding research

Tshepo Molokoane holds a Master's degree in Economics from the University of Cape Town, where his dissertation focused on trade liberalisation and wage inequality in South Africa's manufacturing sector. Before joining TIPS, he worked as a research assistant at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) and the Labour Research Service, contributing to research on labour markets, economic analysis and economic development.