Inequality and Economic Marginalisation
Economic marginalisation – what used to be called the second economy – is at one end of the spectrum of high inequality: manifest in high levels of poverty and social alienation. The work of this pillar builds on the outcomes of a strategy process commissioned by the Presidency and funded by the UK’s Department of International Development (DFID), and reflected in a framework document, Addressing Inequality and Economic Marginalisation, approved by Cabinet in January 2009, and included in the final AsgiSA report. This work focused on three areas of structural inequality, all rooted in legacies of apartheid:
The structure of the economy: its impacts on unemployment, local economic development and in limiting economic opportunities in marginal contexts. This included competition issues, small enterprise, the informal sector, value chains and labour markets.
Spatial inequality: the continued impacts of the 1913 Land Act, bantustans and apartheid cities – coupled with the spatial impacts of more recent policies also. This work also looked at rural development strategies, the impacts of skewed patterns of development in agriculture, and the scope for payment for environmental services to create rural employment.
Inequality of human capital: education and also health. At a strategic level, the framework document highlighted that the kinds of strategies required to address these issues – as the New Growth Path now tries to do – will take time to achieve impacts, and that these impacts will reach the most marginalised last. A complementary set of strategies was therefore proposed, intended to create access to employment even where markets are not doing so. This included the need for innovation in scaling up public employment.
It was against this backdrop that, with support form the Presidency and the Department for Social Development, the Community Work Programme (CWP) was initiated and piloted. While the CWP has been handed over into government, as a programme of the Department of Co-operative Governance since April 1 2010, this pillar continues to provide technical support to the CWP.
Other areas of interest is exploring the scope to create rural employment from payment for environmental services (PES) and the development of a market for environmental services and markets arising from climate change and green jobs.
In the News
- Law, Democracy & Development / Volume 14 - 2010 - Inequality and Economic Marginalisation: How the structure of the economy impacts on opportunities on the margins
- Financial Mail – 10.11.2011 - Informal sector - In the shadow
