Hamid Rashid is Senior Adviser for Macroeconomic Policy in Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) of the United Nations. He leads a new UN initiative to provide alternative and credible policy advice to the Member States on fiscal, monetary and exchange rate related issues. The macroeconomic policy advice of the United Nations covers both short-term economic fluctuations and shocks and long-term national development strategies for sustainable and equitable growth. Dr. Rashid brings to DESA over twenty years of experience, working for the Government of Bangladesh and also for UNDP, the World Bank and UNICEF in Dhaka, Washington D.C. and New York.

Dr. Rashid earned his Ph.D. in Finance and Economics from Columbia University in New York, working under his advisor and mentor, Professor Joseph Stiglitz - the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics. With Professor Stiglitz, he co-authored a monologue, “Travesty of Free Trade” in 2006, which was translated in over eight languages and published in over 200 newspapers worldwide. He obtained his MPA from Columbia University and Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Texas. His research interest includes international finance, macro-economic policies, financial market liberalization and their impact on economic growth and development. Dr. Rashid has taught graduate level courses in economics and public policy at the Columbia University, University of Manchester and the London Business School. He has widely traveled in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe.

About the Presenter:

Mmatlou Kalaba a research fellow at TIPS, specialising in trade research. He also carries out TIPS' capacity-building initiatives in the Southern African region, providing training courses on applied analytical and methodological tools. He currently holds a position in the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Pretoria. Some of the projects at university of Pretoria include The Joint Agribusiness Department of Agriculture Forum for Africa (JADAFA) under the auspices of Department of Agriculture, Forestry and
Fisheries (DAFF) and the Agriculture Business Chamber (ABC) as well as the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP).

Current and previous responsibilities and projects include bilateral and multilateral trade analyses, SADC TRdae Database, the SADC Mid-Term Review, tariff and non-tariff analyses, reviews of tariff policies and related competitiveness issues and the Southern African Trade Database.

Mmatlou was previously with the National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) and the National Department of Agriculture (NDA) as an economist and senior economist, respectively. His responsibilities included an investigation into impact of deregulation on the citrus industry and transformation in the agricultural sector. He also participated in the Food Price Monitoring Committee that investigated high food prices, the impact of deregulation on the wheat and citrus industries and transformation in the agricultural sector, and was involved
in developing regional research capacity.

You can now apply for an Exploratory Research Grant under a new CEPR – DFID research initiative on private enterprise development in low-income countries.

Over the next five years, Private Enterprise Development in Low-Income Countries (PEDL) will pursue a research agenda that aims to better understand what determines the strength of market forces driving efficiency in Low-Income Countries (LICs). Existing research suggests that the private sector in LICs faces a number of constraints that act upon each other. What is needed is research that allows us to understand how these constraints interact.

PEDL will support approaches that promise to produce credible research results that will be useful for policy-making. It will promote research related to private enterprises of all sizes and will initially focus on four research themes:

• Modelling market frictions in LICs using newly available data
• Understanding how constraints interact using micro-founded macro models
• The dynamics of SMEs: Informality and entrepreneurship
• The role of export-oriented industries in driving growth

Proposals that address the following cross-cutting issues will be encouraged.

• Fragile and conflict affected states
• Gender
• Climate, environment and social compliance

Proposals for Exploratory Grants can be submitted at any time and will be awarded primarily to allow researchers to:

• explore new approaches to the study of firms in low-income countries
• develop new (or build on existing) sources of data on firms in low- income countries.

Grants will range in value from between £10,000 to £35,000 (value for money will be a guiding evaluation criterion). The grants are designed to provide financial support for the individuals undertaking the research and to cover reasonable associated costs that are directly related to the proposed research project.
 

Mail & Guardian - 14 October 2011

Treasury and business are set for a showdown on the proposed carbon tax that is expected to come into force early next year after Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan delivers his 2012 budget speech.

South Africans are likely to catch a glimpse of the controversial new policy ahead of the climate change conference, COP17, which starts in Durban on November 28.

The carbon policy, released in December last year, imposes a tax on emissions calculated at R75 a tonne of carbon dioxide (CO²), eventually rising to about R200 a tonne. But these numbers are not a given in the draft policy paper, which treasury spokesperson Bulelwa Boqwana confirmed would be released next month.

Internationally, carbon tax is used as a way to provide incentives for businesses to make choices about energy usage. "But in South Africa the integrated resource plan is used to do that already," said energy analyst Peet du Plooy. 

Read more...

Rudi Dicks has been in the trade union movement for most of his life. He held the position of Executive Director of the National Labour and Economic Development Institute (NALEDI) for four years, up until 2013, and is now with the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation in the Presidency as an Outcome Facilitator for Employment and Inclusive Growth. He was a member of the Management Committee, Executive Council, Labour Market Chamber, Demarcation Committee and S77 Standing Committee at NEDLAC.

He currently serves on the Advisory committee of the Jobs Fund and the Employment, Income Distribution and Inclusive Growth Research Initiative.

Prior to this, he was the Labour Market/Trade Policy Co-ordinator at COSATU. He was a member of the board of trustees of the ComMark Trust, a DFID-funded programme. Rudi also worked for Fair Share, a unit of the School of Government, University of the Western Cape as the Research Co-ordinator. He was also the Industrial Chemicals National Sector Co-ordinator at CEPPWAWU.

Trade and Industrial Policy and Strategies (TIPS) and the World Bank cordially invite you to a conference on Improving Competitiveness for Job Creation: Technology, Access to Finance and Industrial Policy, to be held on October 27, 2011 in the Vulindlela Auditorium, Development Bank of Southern Africa.

Competitiveness and Job Creation 

Employment has been identified by various actors as the top development challenge for South Africa, not least because of its implication for income inequality and social unrest. A less prominent – but closely interrelated – economic challenge is that of competitiveness. Growing employment requires growing the economy, which in turn, requires that the country grows its market share in the global economy - an achievement which requires improved competitiveness.

However, over the last decade or more, the modest growth of the South African economy has been driven, and constrained, by credit-fueled consumption, rather than by improved productivity and exports. Exports remain dominated by basic resources, but even in this sector, the stagnation or (in the case of gold) decline in export volumes (a local factor) was masked by a commodity price boom (a global factor).
A transformation of the economy towards a New Growth Path of higher growth and greater job creation requires that net exports and investment must together displace consumption as the principal sources of increased demand. A crucial issue for South Africa is whether its businesses can rapidly diversify into product categories for which global demand is expanding and whether production can be scaled up rapidly. Tapping into global growth, would result in the creation of local jobs.

Technology

Technology is sometimes considered as competing with job creation in that the massive decline of agricultural and mining jobs in South African and elsewhere around the world has been largely attributed to increased mechanization. However, at the same time, it is undeniable that no country has attained a high level of income, growth or employment without embracing technology.

While technological progress is often associated with reduced demand for low skilled labor (a phenomena know as “skill-biased technical change”), it does not mean technology progress is irrelevant to job creation. To many firms and countries technological upgrading is a matter of survival in the context of global competition, simply because competitors are embracing the productivity gains provided by technological upgrading.

Technological progress and productivity growth can be achieved through either technology innovation or absorption. Technology innovation is the development and commercialization of new, unproven technologies and untested processes and products. Technology absorption on the other hand is defined as the application of existing technologies, processes, and products proved and tested in new markets where commercial applications are not fully known. Simply put, innovation involves creation of “new-to-the-world” technology, while absorption is about “new-to-the-firm” technology.
South Africa has maintained technological advantage in some areas such as mining equipment, and has developed a fairly strong innovation system. Yet, most South African industries are not operating in the global technological frontier and could therefore benefit greatly from technological upgrading. Innovation and absorption are therefore two parallel and mutually reinforcing routes for South Africa to strengthen its global competitiveness. The National Planning Commission (NPC) Diagnostic also acknowledges the interrelated challenge (which it places on par with job creation as the country's top two challenges) of education as a means for growing skills and, in turn, the national ability for technological innovation and absorption.

Access to Finance

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) contribute greatly to competitiveness and job creation. This has been confirmed by numerous studies worldwide. A study of 76 developed and developing economies, for example, found that SMEs account for more than 60 percent of total manufacturing employment and that SMEs contributed significant proportions of GDP. SMEs are also found being positively associated with economic growth.

SME growth requires external financing, but constraints to accessing credit, consistently rated as some of the greatest barriers to the operation and growth of firms, affect SMEs more severely than large firms. Historically, the performance of the South African financial sector in providing access to finance to medium-sized and large firms in the formal sector was seen to be satisfactory, with the financial sector in general rating highly in global assessments of competitiveness. However, at the same time, many micro and small enterprises in the informal economy were facing more severe constraints. Worsening macroeconomic conditions during 2007–09 negatively impacted SME financing, due to both the reduced demand for goods and services sold by SMEs and the tightened credit conditions. Given South Africa's entrenched economic divisions, where an advanced economy operates in parallel (and some would argue, co-dependently) with a much poorer, less developed economy, there remains an important role for government in taking an active, market-leading policy stance to address structural obstacles and to ensure access to finance for all entrepreneurs.

Industrial Policy

Industrial policies are widely employed by governments to promote industrialization, technological upgrading and improved competitiveness. There are few economies in the world that do not offer incentives for industrial development. Advanced market economies are as wedded to incentive policies as are industrializing socialist economies such as China and Vietnam. But industrial policies are risky. It is always challenging to get industrial policies right, and when they go wrong, they cost dearly in terms of growth and jobs.

Additional challenge arises from the fact that the global economy is changing rapidly; industrial policies that worked before in other countries may not work today in South Africa. In particular, the strength of global demand for manufactured goods and export competition from China and India directly impinge upon the composition and pace of industrial change in South Africa and the effectiveness of industrial policies.

In implementing the Industrial Policy Action Plan, South Africa would benefit from acknowledging a historic legacy of industrial development, with good and bad elements, that gave rise to the so-called Mineral-Energy Complex. In optimizing the gains from industrial development, policies should strike a balance between persisting in programmes of industrial development that deliver significant returns in the long term, while continuously adapting policies to changing global conditions. Both persistence and change informed by evidence of improvements in investment, employment and competitiveness.

Objectives

Building on a range of analytical products completed recently by TIPS, the World Bank and other researchers, this conference is intended to provide a platform for in-depth discussion on important policy issues that have implications for competitiveness and job creation, with particular focuses on technology, entrepreneurship and SME finance, and industrial policy. It is expected that the discussions will move forward the debate on policy actions that can be taken to foster job-creating competitiveness in South Africa as well as identify knowledge gaps with policy reference that require further study and debate.

Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) is pleased to announce a short workshop on computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling, to be held at the TIPS offices in Pretoria from 5-9 March 2012. It will be restricted to 16 participants.
The IT revolution has allowed techniques that were once the preserve of a handful of leading theoreticians to become part of the practical economist's everyday toolkit. CGE modelling is one of a number of approaches to economy-wide analysis that have become accessible and practicable as data and computer based techniques have developed. An increasing number of economists use this framework to analyse real world issues that were previously approached through less appropriate partial equilibrium methods. As part of their commitment to ensuring that Southern Africa benefits from these development, TIPS has (co)presented a series of related short workshops over the past ten years. The current workshop is part of this on-going programme.
The workshop is designed specifically for people who need to use the results of economy-wide models to inform their analysis of real world issues. It will integrate theory, real world data, hands-on computer work and real-world applications. Thus participants will be

• introduced to the micro, macro and trade theories that underlie typical CGE models;
• provided with an overview and practical examples of Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) and of parameter and elasticity estimation methods which typically provide the data on which CGEs are built;
• led through various applications with special emphasis on the economic interpretation of results;
• exposed to issues involved in using models for specific applications such as the analysis of trade, public finance, regulation and environmental economics.

The models have been set-up to run through an Excel interface, with the specialised modelling language (GAMS) running in the background. This is designed to keep the focus on the economics rather than the technicalities of modelling. The applications use models developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and adapted by the workshop instructors to suit southern African economies. Participants will apply what they learn to a group mini-project, which will be presented to the class at the end of the workshop.

The workshop is targeted at those who need to understand the potential and limitations of the use of these approaches without themselves becoming modellers. As such it should appeal to policy makers and analysts in both the public and the private sectors, to students and to academics. The workshop will also provide a foundation for those who wish to become modellers by taking future courses on actual modelling techniques.

No previous exposure to CGE modelling is required, although it will be an advantage if participants have some familiarity with SAMs and with Excel.

Workshop leaders are Dirk Ernst van Seventer and Rob Davies.

Workshop fees (which includes teas and light lunches): R8,000 for SA resident participants, R8,000 for African participants and R12,500 for other participants.

Registration closing date is Friday 13 January 2012. Seats will be reserved until the payment closing date of 17 February 2012. The offering of the workshop is dependent on attracting a minimum number of students by the time of the payment closing date.

The findings clearly answer the question of how beneficiaries have been impacted by CWP. The findings show that the beneficiaries are pleased with the quality of services that are provided through the CWP programme such as home based care, cleaning of cre?ches and teachers assistants etc. It becomes evident that CWP has impacted and assisted beneficiaries, such as unemployed community members, sick patients, children and families, on an individual level.

The impact of the CWP programme has also taken place on an institutional level through improvements of cre?ches and schools. The benefits can lastly be seen on community level in terms of improved infrastructure, decreased unemployment and crime, cleaner environment, improved education and provision of social support services. The conclusion is therefore that the findings paint a picture where the community has been uplifted as a whole by the CWP. The findings also include answers to the question of how CWP can be developed and improved according to it's beneficiaries. Some answers are specific for the particular group of beneficiaries
such as creating access to a garden for home based care patients. Other suggestions are represented among various beneficiaries such as skills development, training and creating further opportunities to excel for those who provide services in the community through CWP

Highlighted need for improvements in terms of the working conditions within CWP related to HR matters for the people who provide services in the community are also prominent among various beneficiaries. The beneficiaries refer to HR matters such as stipends and job descriptions. Some suggested developments would impact a particular group of beneficiaries or would improve a particular project within CWP such as suggestions made by beneficiaries of increasing the working hours for teachers assistants and home based carers. The beneficiaries also identified improvements that refer to the way CWP is structured and implemented in the
community, such as improved communication between the CWP co-ordinators and the work place of the people providing services in the community and community members highlighting the need to evaluate and assess the size and the efficiency of the CWP management structures. 

The interviewees from the school and the interviewees who provide services in the community highlighted investments that could be made by CWP to ensure a long term impact such as providing bursaries, training and job opportunities for the beneficiaries who work through CWP.

South Africa's economic dominance in Africa and in the southern African region is an accepted fact but its role in the continent has long been contested. South Africa's member ship of the G20 brought with it expectations from some quarters that it would represent Africa within that grouping. The recent admission of South Africa into the BRIC(S) came with many discussions and debates on South Africa's role as a 'gateway' into Africa. But what does this actually mean? Three possibilities have been mooted: “First, multinational companies could use South Africa as a hub for regional headquarters, utilising our superior services infrastructure to co-ordinate their regional activities. Second, multinationals and South African corporates could take advantage of our relatively advanced transport and distribution networks. Third, companies could use South Africa as a sourcing hub.” However, as South Africa struggles with chronic unemployment and poverty problems, questions arise as to the potential and possibility of South Africa being a gateway into Africa. In an effort to unravel the issues, SAIIA and TIPS have come together for this dialogue which will reflect the views of government, business and labour.

SAIIA and TIPS have come together to create a platform for the discussion of the abovementioned issue.

About the presenters:

Peter Draper's current domestic affiliations include: Senior Research Fellow in the Economic Diplomacy programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs; Adjunct Professor at Wits Business School; Programme Director of the think tank consortium at the Centre for Development and Enterprise; and Research Associate of the Department of Political Science at the University of Pretoria. His current international affiliations include: board member of the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis; non-resident senior fellow of the Brussels-based European Centre for International Political Economy; chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Trade; and member of the World Economic Survey Expert Group coordinated by the Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.

Dianna Games is an independent consultant and researcher on African business. Since 2004, she has been CEO
of Africa At Work, a company that covers a range of services linked to business in Africa, and she has had a
number of research reports published. Her advisory and research work has included engagements by Nepad,
Comesa, Development Bank of Southern Africa, South African Institute for International Affairs, Brenthurst Foundation, United Nations, Gordon Institute for Business Science as well as international companies in South, Southern and West Africa. She is also the Honorary Chief Executive of the SA-Nigeria Chamber of Commerce and
a columnist on African issues for Business Day newspaper

2012 Research Conference on Microinsurance

You are invited to submit paper or panel proposals for the 2012 Research Conference on Microinsurance on 11,12,13 April 2012 at the University of Twente in Enschede, The Netherlands by:

Institute for Governance Studies (IGS),
The African Studies Centre (ASC),
The Microinsurance Network (MIN),
The Center for Economic Analysis of Risk (CEAR)
Munich Re Foundation
German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)
The University of Mannheim
Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The objective of the conference is to assess the state of the art in microinsurance research and to provide a platform for further in-depth academic discussions, as a complement and follow-up to the Annual International Microinsurance Conferences. In addition, the conference aims to create a dialogue between researchers from different geographical regions and the variety of research disciplines.

For further information on suggested conference themes, important dates, submissions and registration please visit our conference website. <http://www.utwente.nl/igs/2012%20Research%20Conference%20on%20Microinsurance/>

Should you have any further questions, please contact: m.f.clifford@utwente.nl

We are delighted that key-notes will be given by:
Jerry Skees, Craig Churchill, Shawn Cole and Xavier Giné

Advisors and organizers are:
Glenn Harrison, Markus Frölich, Robert Lensink, Anne van der Veen, Haroon Bhorat, Hans Jürgen Rösner, Shawn Cole, Xavier Giné, Susan Steiner, Aaltje de Roos, Arthur ten Have, Dirk Reinhard, Véronique Faber, Marleen Dekker, André Leliveld, Marcia Clifford, Karlijn Morsink