SA Needs to Get the Basics Right
Barring an obsession with trade negotiations, there is no discussion of trade policy in SA. Yet well-calibrated trade policy can have significant positive effects on economic growth.
Time to Bring Democracy Back to Parliament
We the people are allowing South African parliamentary democracy to fail us. To illustrate the point, how many readers of Business Day have participated in Parliament, attended a parliamentary portfolio committee meeting, or even met the MP who is assigned to their constituency?
Where ‘Never Again’ Whispers Through the Harsh Desert Wind
Ten years after Rwanda’s genocide, Africans are once again being slaughtered while the world stands by – this time in the arid western expanses of Sudan.
What Could Be Eating Beijing?
To many casual observers, the Chinese economy is Herculean. Nothing will stop it growing, few can compete with its manufacturing prowess, and none exerts the same degree of leverage over the U.S. economy.
Special Feature: Why the Millennium Development Goals Won’t Help Africa
With apparent enthusiasm the UN, most development aid donors and agencies, academics, politicians and journalists seem to have embraced the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as a prime measure of development progress.
Political Blindness: Claiming Credit Before Checking Reality
‘The key issues confronting our people are job creation and poverty alleviation.” Attribute that quote to any African leader, from lowly municipal manager to country president, and the chances are it would be applicable, overwhelmingly so.
Continental Body Bares Its Teeth
When the Pan African Parliament (PAP) began its fourth sitting late last month, it seemed that the pomp and ceremony accompanying the unveiling of the assembly’s new chambers would not be matched by any increase in the initiative displayed by its members.
Development through Trade: A WTO deal for agriculture
Without a satisfactory deal in agriculture the Doha Round of trade talks will unravel. But the parameters of “satisfactory” vary hugely depending on who is under the microscope.
EDITORIAL: A Millennium Growth Agenda for Africa
The nations of the world unanimously approved the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which commit humanity to radically reducing poverty. But they never asked a most basic question: how will meeting the MDGs make the poor more economically competitive and self-reliant?
Paying for Broken Promises
In their first referendum since 1963, Kenyans took to the polling booth in November to vote on a new constitution.