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?
Manuel Perez-Rocha & Julia Paley -
With Republicans winning big in the midterm elections, the debate over so-called “free-trade” agreements could again take center stage in Washington.
President Barack Obama has been angling for “fast-track” authority that would enable him to push the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP—a massive free-trade agreement between the United States and a host of Pacific Rim countries—through Congress with limited debate and no opportunity for amendments....
This week World Development Movement activists, dressed as representatives of some of the world's largest food and drink companies, delivered an Africa shaped thank-you cake to the Department for International Development (DfID). This tongue-in-cheek action highlights the support that DfID is giving to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, the stated aim of which is to lift 50 million people out of poverty and improve food security.
"Sounds great", I hear you say....
Jason Hickel -
The last decade has seen a remarkable surge in U.S. economic interest in the continent of Africa. Policymakers who once considered Africa the languid backwater of global economics are now rushing in to stake a claim in the continent’s enormous resource endowment. Most of this effort operates with a rhetoric focused on “partnership” and “development,” with the vision of using US trade and investment to lift Africans out of poverty. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary...
Michelle Pressend -
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) celebrated its 30th anniversary at this year’s SADC Summit on the 16th and 17th of August in Windhoek, Namibia. While heads of state congratulated themselves for achievements such as peace and stability - a prerequisite for sustained economic growth - in the region, the reality on the ground contrasts with their embellished sense of accomplishment.
Of approximately 250 million citizens in the SADC, 80% have no access to modern energy...
Stephen Greenberg -
An important question facing humanity at present is how to ensure enough food is produced so that everyone has enough. There is a distribution issue that is unresolved in a capitalist system: the market distributes, and those without the resources to participate in the market are excluded. This produces the reality of obesity in some countries side by side with starvation in others, and surplus production that goes to waste or is fed to animals, side by side with food deficits in other...
Michelle Pressend -
Since the last World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting took place in Hong Kong in 2005, the WTO Doha negotiations have remained at an impasse. Attempts to revive negotiations last year during the July 2008 mini Ministerial meeting failed.
In principle what the Doha Declaration agreed to in 2001 was meant to foster ‘development’ in developing countries and address the adverse impact of trade liberalization and deregulation.
Since then, Doha negotiations have been...
