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.
At this seminar, Sarah Truen of Genesis Analytics presented a comparative study to assess how close to or how far from the competitive, or best practice, price benchmark South Africa's telecommunications prices are. She finds that there is no innate reason why South Africans should not have access to telecommunications services at such a benchmark price level, and therefore compares South Africa to a best-practice peer group.
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.