More than ten years have passed since the advent of democracy in South Africa. Over this period, economic growth has been robust and employment has expanded. Nevertheless, unemployment has risen substantially and improvements in terms of poverty and inequality have been slow to materialise. It has therefore become increasingly clear that the major challenge facing the country is twofold: to lift the economy onto a path of higher growth and to ensure that the benefits of this growth are enjoyed by all members of society. This notion is encapsulated in the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (ASGISA), spearheaded by the Deputy President of South Africa.

This year's conference will look in detail at the concept of accelerated and shared growth and, specifically, how the poor are to be engaged in development, covering areas ranging from small business development, trade and industrial concentration, to quality education, skills development and youth unemployment.

For more information on the conference, view the following links:

As part of the DFID-funded South Africa Trade and Poverty Programme and its objective to promote informed dialogue on South Africa's trade policy amongst key stakeholders, TIPS in 2005 implemented a seminar series under the auspices of Nedlac. These seminars provided a platform for government and civil society representatives (business, labour and broader social interest groups) to discuss critical issues concerning the role of trade policy in fostering poverty reduction and human development in South Africa.

A team of economic researchers from Stellenbosch University recently attempted to estimate trends on poverty in the post-transition period, focusing particularly on trends since the turn of the century. Using information from more than 30 datasets, they find robust evidence of a strong decline in poverty (both in terms of number of poor people and the proportion they form of the total population), largely due to an increase of R27-billion in public expenditure on social grants since 2000.

Prof. Servaas van der Berg and Megan Louw presented the findings at the eighth SATPP Policy Dialogue Workshop in the series.

The seminar is part of the the South Africa Trade and Poverty Programme (SATPP) funded by the Department For International Development (DFID-SA), and is organised by NEDLAC and TIPS.

Trade negotiators are faced with a bewildering array of new agreements on the horizon. Before embarking on any agreement, governments have to understand the consequences of such a policy. This course is aimed at equipping trade analysts with the economic and spreadsheet knowledge that they need to carry out such research.
Researchers will learn about sources of data, as well as basic techniques to manipulate the data into a useable format. The course will be based mainly on MicroSoft Excel, using real trade and tariff data. The course organisers will attempt to base the examples in the course on the participants' countries of origin, if possible.
Each new concept will be introduced through lectures and then participants will do examples on their own, using real trade data. Participants will thus also become more familiar with their own trade data.

The course will be presented by trade economists from TIPS and will be presented at TIPS' offices in Pretoria, South Africa.
The course will cost R5000 but a limited number of bursaries are available for researchers from the region (outside South Africa).

Input-output analysis, complemented by means of social accounting matrices is often used as a tool to conduct such meso-level economic enquiry. Researchers frequently use these tools to analyse the impact on production, the environment, prices, employment and income effects of policy related changes in international trade, taxes, fiscal policy and investment. Economic modelling techniques that capture economy-wide impacts of policy changes are increasingly being used in South African academic, consulting and research circles. To cater for this increased demand, Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) are offering the fifth one week introductory course in economy-wide policy impact analysis.

As part of the DFID-funded South Africa Trade and Poverty Programme and its objective to promote informed dialogue on South Africa's trade policy amongst key stakeholders, TIPS in 2005 implemented a seminar series under the auspices of Nedlac. These seminars provided a platform for government and civil society representatives (business, labour and broader social interest groups) to discuss critical issues concerning the role of trade policy in fostering poverty reduction and human development in South Africa

During February 2006 much media attention was given to the R372-billion set aside by government for infrastructure investment. But is infrastructure a household term? What entails infrastructure, which are the major sectors? What are the special characteristics of national infrastructure and of household level infrastructure; and where are the backlogs in investment? What are the unique challenges facing each? Will the proposed investments be a quantum leap forward or merely a catch-up? Can municipalities afford to rollout services to all and keep those services running?

These are some of the issues discussed and questions answered in the DBSA Infrastructure Barometer 2006, presented at Nedlac as part of the SATPP Policy Dialogue series.

The seminar is part of the the South Africa Trade and Poverty Programme (SATPP) funded by the Department For International Development (DFID-SA), and is organised by NEDLAC and TIPS.

This is a call for papers to address the role that research has had in inducing changes in trade policy, or in matters related to it, such as competition policy, investment policy or intellectual property rights. Selected papers will be discussed at a workshop in Buenos Aires in July 2006 with publication thereafter.

Due to high demand in South and Southern Africa, Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) is running their annual short course on computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling course in Gauteng from 17-24 February 2006.
The course is targeted at those who wish to develop professional expertise in the area, as well as those who need to understand the potential and limitations of the use of these approaches without themselves becoming modellers. As such it should appeal to policy makers and analysts in both the public and the private sectors as well as to students and academics.

Globalization offers new opportunities for accelerating development and poverty reduction, but also poses new challenges for policymakers. And there is much concern about the distribution of benefits; in particular whether the poor gain from globalization, and under what circumstances it may actually hurt them. To meet this important agenda, this project aims at producing rigorous theoretical and empirical analysis of the poverty impact of globalization, thereby providing a framework upon which to build strategies for pro-poor globalization'. The project is particularly interested in understanding better the mechanisms through which globalization ultimately affects poverty. And it is important to evaluate how different poor groups are affected in different ways by globalization (the rural versus urban poor for example). The project will produce thematic papers as well as country and regional case studies of globalization's poverty impact.

As part of the DFID-funded South Africa Trade and Poverty Programme and its objective to promote informed dialogue on South Africa's trade policy amongst key stakeholders, TIPS in 2005 implemented a seminar series under the auspices of Nedlac. These seminars provided a platform for government and civil society representatives (business, labour and broader social interest groups) to discuss critical issues concerning the role of trade policy in fostering poverty reduction and human development in South Africa.

Frank Flatters, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Queens University, Canada and consultant to regional organisations and governments in Southern Africa, discussed the economics of the Motor Industry Development Programme (MIDP) at this workshop. To assist in understanding the widely regarded success of the programme and contribute to the current review of its future, Flatters presented an analysis of the way in which the programme operates and some of its actual and alleged benefits and costs. He also reviewed some of the implications of this analysis for MIDP's use as a model for other sectoral industrial policies in South Africa.

The seminar is part of the the South Africa Trade and Poverty Programme (SATPP) funded by the Department For International Development (DFID-SA), and is organised by NEDLAC and TIPS.

The Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations is underway at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). With no prospect of a successful conclusion of the negotiations by the agreed deadline of 1 January 2005, the WTO General Council agreed in July 2004 to adopt a work programme that seeks to accelerate the negotiating momentum, and to conclude the Round by the end of 2006.
The South African Government is currently preparing its approach to the 6th Ministerial Conference. As part of the preparations, the Government is convening a National Consultative Conference, so that interested parties can participate in informing the development of South Africa's approach to the meeting in Hong Kong, China.