South Africa’s Electricity Crisis: Clearer prioritisation and coherence needed
Is there clarity and coherence in current measures being taken by South Africa’s government to address the country’s critical energy challenges?
Ahead of FOCAC and toward Agenda 2063: A timely window for African think tanks to take the lead
This year is seen as an important step towards implementing Africa’s future development plans. With the MDGs drawing to a close, the post-2015 development agenda for the continent is framed around Agenda 2063.
Cultural Diplomacy through ‘China’s Year in South Africa’
How are states employing cultural diplomacy in an increasingly interconnected world in shaping understanding between societies while promoting preferential co-operation between nations? Observers of China-South Africa relations will have noticed the increasing reference to the ‘China Year in South Africa’ by officials on both sides.
Imagining South Africa’s Foreign Investment Regulatory Regime in a Global Context
International trade and investment have been around for a long time. The quest for resources has manifested itself through trade and, as time evolved, has been realised through wars of conquest, friendship, commerce and navigation treaties, colonialism, gunboat diplomacy and, lately, the evolution of an international investment regulatory framework.
BRICS Insights Collection: BRICS and Development Finance Institutions
A new set of papers has just been released, looking at BRICS and Development Finance Institutions.
Recalibrating South Africa’s Role in Global Economic Governance: A Nigerian Perspective on Some Strategic Challenges
A Nigerian perspective on South Africa’s position in global economic governance, particularly in relation to its role in the BRICS grouping and the G-20, provides critical insights into the potential benefits of a reinvigorated Nigerian–South African partnership.
South Africa’s Foreign Policy: Tempering Dominance Through Integration
Southern Africa has always featured prominently in South Africa’s foreign policy. During apartheid, the National Party government saw fit to unleash a destructive agenda on neighbouring countries as an integral part of its strategy to quash support for the liberation movement.
Judicial Independence Under the APRM: From Rhetoric to Reality
The greatest challenges to good governance in Africa lie at the intersection of two problems: (i) low horizontal and vertical accountability, and (ii) weak constitutionalism.
Why the Opposition won in Nigeria and what to expect now?
History is likely to regard Nigeria’s just-concluded election as the defining one that finally put the country on an irreversible course of democratic maturation.
South Africa’s National Security Interests and Its Investment Attractiveness Conundrum
At the recent University of the Witwatersrand’s Mandela Institute Conference on the Private Security Industry Regulatory Act Amendment Bill, commonly known as the Security Bill, National Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa provided the keynote address. From the various presentations at the Conference, held on 19 March 2015, it became apparent that there is a disconnect between South Africa’s national security imperatives and its trade and investment policy.