The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
SACSIS promotes the principle of just economies. We are opposed to economic development that violates social and economic rights and increases inequalities in the pursuit of economic growth.
Nick Galasso & Marjorie Wood -
Extreme economic inequality is corrosive.
It makes poverty reduction harder, hurts our economies, and drives conflict and violence. Reversing this trend presents a significant challenge, but one where we’ve seen some progress. Below we offer eight ways to move the world forward in reducing global inequality.
1. A Check on Illicit Outflows
In developing countries, inadequate resourcing for health, education, sanitation, and investment in the poorest citizens drives extreme...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene, in his inaugural budget speech, offers this piece of wisdom, “The challenge of governance is to choose wisely between competing alternatives.” This takeaway statement is as true of Minister Nene’s inaugural budget speech, as it is about each of his predecessors. However, underlying these choices is deep polarisation in South Africa.
On the one hand, mainstream commentators from financial institutions are praising a lower than expected...
Frances Coppola -
The Greek deal on Friday achieved two things.
Firstly, it confused everybody. Not much seemed to have changed since the angry meetings of the beginning of the week, and yet all the protagonists seemed to emerge happy.
Secondly, it allowed everyone to preserve their previous opinions. People who thought that Germany should win, thought it had; people who thought that Greece should win, thought it had. People who wanted Greece to stay in the Euro, thought it would; while people who wanted...
Saliem Fakir -
Last week the Mining Indaba came and went just like it does every year. Some 7,000 people attended. On its margins, outside of the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), a different kind of mining indaba, a people’s indaba, took place in close by Woodstock. This was the 5th Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI), which serves as a counterpoint to the industry event. AMI voices always struggle to find their way into the CTICC, but the chorus from the margins is growing stronger with...
Nicolas Pons-Vignon -
Suggesting that workers, meaning those in low-level occupations, are overpaid, has become commonplace in South Africa. It is one facet of a broader line of argument, according to which, workers, especially black workers have been excessively well treated in the post-apartheid dispensation. The other facet of this argument is that this is not just a problem of attitude - one of entitlement justifying laziness, for instance - but also a cause of poverty, since overpaid workers keep others out...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Have we reached the end of the road for redistribution in South Africa? Recent publications by the World Bank and the South African Communist Party (SACP) suggest that the time for redistribution may well be over. The oddness of the pairing - usually with different ideological stances - is remarkable in itself, but the underlying logic for reaching the conclusion is even more remarkable.
The policy recommendation is similar. After a strong focus on expanding services, South Africa must now...
