City Press - 29 August 2016 by Dewald Van Rensberg

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African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE)

APORDE is an annual training programme that brings together academics, policymakers and civil society representatives to investigate economic development options. It aims to build capacity in economics and economic policymaking. The course is run for two weeks and consists of lectures and seminars taught by international and African economists. TIPS co-facilitates the programme, and co-hosts a number of seminars.

Lectures open to the public during the two week programme.  

1. Alice Amsden Memorial Lecture
Speaker: Minister Malusi Gigaba
Date: Monday 5 September 2016
Time: 18h30
Venue: Senate Room, 2nd Floor Senate House, Wits University
Co-host: University of Witwatersrand and TIPS

For more information go to Alice Amsden Memorial Lecture.

2. Inequality, Investment and Growth
Speakers: José Gabriel Palma; Kate Philip
Date: Tuesday 6 September 2016
Time: 13h30
Venue: TIPS offices; 234 Lange Street Pretoria
Co-host: The Economies of Regions Learning Network

For more information go to: Inequality, Investment and Growth.

3. International financial flows and financial crises
Speaker: José Gabriel Palma
Date: Thursday 8 September 2016
Time: 18h00
Venue: CCRED offices, 2nd Floor 5 Sturdee Avenue Rosebank
Co-host: Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED)

4. Labour, Economic Development and the Minimum Wage Debate in South Africa
Speakers: Gilad Isaacs
Date: Monday 12 September 2016
Time: 18h30
Venue: IDC Conference Centre; 19 Fredman Drive, Sandton
Co-host: Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and Independent World of Work

5. Social Policy and its Linkages with Industrial Policy
Speaker: Thandika Mkandawire
Date: Tuesday 13 September 2016
Time: 17h30
Venue: C-Ring 315, Auckland Park Kingsway Campus, University of Johannesburg
Co-host: South African Research Chair in Industrial Development, University of Johannesburg,

RSVP by email: Daphney@tips.org.za or Rozale@tips.org.za to confirm attendance.

Please note which seminar you will be attending in your confirmation.

Alice Amsden Memoria Lecture

Topic: The State-Business Relationship and Industrial Policy

Speaker: Malusi Gigaba, Minister of Home Affairs

About the Speaker

Malusi Gigaba is the Minister of Home Affairs. He was South Africa's Public Enterprises Minister and prior to this appointment, he was the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs for South Africa. Gigaba is also the former President of the African National Congress Youth League and a Member of the African National Congress NEC. He is a Member of the National Working Committee of the African National Congress and a Patron of the OASIS for Hope Hospice.

About Alice Amsden

Alice H. Amsden, an expert in economic development who served as the Barton L.
Weller Professor of Political Economy in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and
Planning, died suddenly on March 14 at her home in Cambridge. She was 68.
A prolific scholar, Amsden wrote extensively about the process of industrialization in
emerging economies, particularly in Asia. Her work frequently emphasized the
importance of the state as a creator of economic growth, and challenged the idea that
globalization had produced generally uniform conditions in which emerging economies
could find a one-size-fits-all path to prosperity.

Please RSVP by 1 Sept 2016 to Rozale@tips.org.za

Finger food will be served

The National Treasury proposed 20% tax on sugary soft drinks derives from the National Department of Health strategy to reduce obesity. It is rooted in the scientific consensus that these kinds of drinks are a key factor behind rising obesity and the attendant ailments of diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.

The makers of sugary soft drinks have reacted to the proposed tax with an aggressive attack that contends, among other things, that the tax will lead to massive job losses.

This brief weighs up the arguments by the Beverage Association of South Africa, and finds serious flaws in the data behind them.

Read online: Debates on the sugar tax

TOPIC

South Africa is among a small group of uniquely unequal countries; if inequality acts as a constraint on growth – and greater equity unlocks it – how does it do so? What are the transmission mechanisms that lead to this effect? Can it be assumed that all forms of inequality are equal in this respect?

All forms of inequality impact negatively on social stability - people all over the world place a high value on fairness and equity, it seems. Such social instability has economic effects. Economic actors typically respond by reducing the scope of their activities, hedging their bets, limiting their risk, off-shoring their assets and investing in financial instruments that allow them flexibility rather than investing in productive activity that could create inclusive forms of growth.

About the Speakers

José Gabriel Palma is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Economics, Cambridge University. He has a D. Phil in Economics from Oxford University, a PHD from Cambridge University (by incorporation) and a D. Phil in Political Science from Sussex University.  He worked during the Government of Salvador Allende in the nationalisation of the copper industry, and after his graduate work in the UK he worked as a lecturer at the universities of London, Sussex, Oxford and Cambridge. He has published articles and books dealing with the economics of developing countries, with a strong focus on Latin America and Asia. He has also written extensively on inequality, financial liberalisation and financial crises, industrial policy, de-industrialisation, the history of ideas in development economics and politics, and Latin American economic history. 

Kate Philip has extensive experience in the development sector as a practitioner and in policy development, focused on issues of economic marginalisation, inequality, employment and enterprise development. She has provided advisory support to the South African Presidency on issues of inequality and economic marginalisation and through TIPS, she was lead author on a UNDP Working Paper entitled ‘The impacts of social and economic inequality on economic development in South Africa’. She played a central role in the design and development of South Africa’s Community Work Programme, and is currently supporting the Government of Greece in the design of a public employment programme. She is also a Senior Adviser to GTAC in National Treasury. Her PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2007 is entitled: ‘Enterprise on the margins: making markets work for the poor?’

Business Day - Neva Makgetla 16 August 2016

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Engineering News - Natasha Odendaal 21 July 2016

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Business Day - Mark Allix 22 July 2016

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Presenter: Professor Karl Ove Moene, Department of Economcs, University of Oslo

Professor Karl Ove Moene is a Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Oslo and the founder and leader of the Centre of Equality, Social Organisation and Performance (ESOP) at the University of Oslo. Professor Moene has published over 60 articles in top international journals, covering a wide range of topics including equality, wage compression, welfare, social democracy, the Scandinavian model, Scandinavian equality, and the European social model, among others.   
 
He is also the author of several books, including Trade Union Behaviour, Pay Bargaining and Economic Performance, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993 and Alternatives to Capitalism, co-edited with J Elster, Cambridge University Press, 1989.

What are the main changes in the global trading architecture over the past 15 years? How have these changes impacted on Africa’s economic development and the nature of trading relations between Africa and its traditional developed country partners, the European Union, the UK and the USA, and its main developing country partner, China? What are the implications of 'Brexit' - the UK's departure from the European Union - for Africa's trade? And how has the changing narrative of trade and trade integration impacted on Africa’s own strategy to integrate its market? This issue of Commonwealth Trade Hot Topics explores these questions and offers some policy recommendations for African policy-makers and trade negotiators.

See Journal of World Trade 51, no. 1 Wournal of World Trade 51, no 1 2017 by Faizel Ismail: The changing global trade architecture: Implications for Africa's regional integration and development

Faizel Ismail is Faizel Ismail is Adjunct Professor in the School of Economics, University of Cape Town and a TIPS Research Fellow