Featured · Agriculture & rural economy
There is a gradual decline in households engaged in subsistence agriculture. What does this mean for food security and for households’ wellbeing?
In many ways, South Africa is a textbook example of a resilient emerging market, but the country still faces the “silent crisis” of tepid growth. This is caused not by macro-economic policy but by the institutional failure brought on by state capture.
How effective are cash transfers in improving labour market outcomes in contexts where jobs are scarce and barriers to self-employment high? We examine the effects of South Africa's Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant – a small, unconditional cash transfer targeting the unemployed – and find that it increases job search and employment without discouraging work, at least on average. However, in a labour market as structurally constrained as South Africa's, these gains are modest and short-lived, pointing to the need for complementary reforms that go beyond income support alone.
Operation Vulindlela is a joint delivery unit of the Presidency and the National Treasury, established in 2020 to implement a limited set of reforms identified in a 2019 National Treasury growth paper. Its first phase covered electricity generation licensing, water-use licences, work visas, freight rail and ports, and telecommunications. A second phase extends to metro rail, municipal water services, local government finances and digital government. This article sets out what each of those reforms involved, and where the programme now stands.
Downloads from this web forum are for private, non-commercial use only. Consult the copyright and media usage guidelines on www.econ3x3.org
