Rethinking the ‘Buy Local’ conditions in the SA Infrastructure Investment Programme
The current global economic crisis has forced countries to design and implement various economic stimulus packages. Infrastructure investment programmes are major form these stimulus packages take.
Anniversary: The legacy of Jan Smuts
Perhaps nothing better captures the legacy of Jan Christiaan Smuts than the bronze bust that greets visitors in the entrance hall of the building that bears his name – Jan Smuts House – housing the South African Institute of International Affairs.
Reckoning with the APRM Recommendations
The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) aims to promote ‘good governance’ in Africa, through systematic reviews of a state’s governance practices and subsequent recommendations, made by the APRM’s Panel of Eminent Persons in each report, on how to improve them.
The Lessons of April 22: Ballots vs. Bullets
Wednesday 22 April 2009 will be remembered by many in Africa an historic day. Almost 80% of eligible voters in South Africa went to the polls peacefully in a national election to choose their fourth government since the watershed elections in 1994 that established a non-racial democracy in the country.
Support for Zimbabwe’s Recovery: A Lost Opportunity for SADC?
It has been over a month now since the unity government in Zimbabwe published proposals to dig the country out of the economic hole it has been languishing in over the best part of the past decade. T
The More Things Change: What Zuma’s Presidency Means for the Rest of Africa
In a little over two weeks, Jacob Zuma will be sworn in as fourth president of South Africa since the advent of democracy in 1994.
Fossiled Priorities In IPP Regulations?
The Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) released its draft independent power producer (IPP) regulations on January 30 with a harsh deadline of March 2, for public comment.
Kenneth Good, ‘Diamonds, Dispossession and Democracy in Botswana’. Jacana Media, Johannesburg, 2009.
This book wipes the lustre off Africa’s sparkling success story, Botswana. Through the pages of a relatively slim volume, Australian Professor Kenneth Good, who was declared an ‘Undesirable Immigrant’ and deported from Botswana in June 2005, painstakingly unearths a different reality to this much-vaunted case of African exceptionalism.
What’s Urdu for Biltong? Can South Africa Help Pakistan?
Following its democratic turn in 1994, Nelson Mandela wrote the year previously, the second pillar of South African foreign policy would be the principle ‘that just and lasting solutions to the problems of humankind can only come through the promotion of democracy worldwide…’
Transport Services in SACU: Accelerating Harmonisation and Liberalisation
Services are without doubt a key driver of economic growth and fundamentally influence (or determine) the trade capacity of countries. Like many other World Trade Organisation (WTO) member states, Southern African Customs Union (SACU) countries recognise the importance of a more liberal services trade regime in enhancing the availability and quality of key services like communications, transport, energy, construction and financial services that are vital to economic growth and trade competitiveness.