Most South Africans think prices are rising much faster than is actually the case. This makes the central bank’s job of managing inflation expectations much harder.
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Some areas of concern remain. These include the mobilisation of local resources, reduction of the fiscal deficit and stabilisation of the national debt.
Displaced by the terrorist insurgency in Northeast Nigeria, refugees aren’t wallowing in self-pity. They’re mobilising whatever resources they can to rebuild livelihoods.
Inequality persists in post-apartheid South Africa, reflecting the distribution of power. Reversing this will require changing the social processes and relations that underpin it.
If the country is to survive its current crisis, government will need to undertake two difficult tasks simultaneously.
Paid employment is no longer a guarantee that workers will earn enough to cover their basic needs and become relatively secure financially. Hence the global phenomenon of the working poor.
Tackling corruption is notoriously difficult but Nigeria is pursuing a fresh approach. Using technology, especially social media, its citizens are producing evidence to hold officials to account.
South Africa could become a test bed of technologies that enable households, especially in remote areas, to join electricity trading markets.
South Africa will introduce the carbon tax which should be used to ensure benefits to poor communities.
Almost 80 million Nigerians do not have access to electricity and its erratic supply is costing the economy an estimated $29 billion annually. Nigeria’s abundant sunlight could be the solution.
Unlike India’s, South Africa’s business process outsourcing sector is not generating jobs that offer workers the chance of progressing up the career ladder.
With the current state of the South African economy and public finances, the Parliamentary Budget Office could play a major role in ensuring that this happens. But the office is in complete disarray
South Africa’s embrace of international conventions has buttressed the country’s reputation in statistical circles. But these global standards prove a poor fit for the country.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has revived a presidential advisory unit shut down by his predecessor. He needs it if he is to use his power effectively to improve his government’s policy coherence.
In matters of policy-making and governing, understanding the systemic complexity of interrelated forces is crucial to avoiding failure.
Africa is home to the world’s fastest growing cities. However, poor governance has robbed the continent of the benefits of people and firms clustering together.
Over the past few years, heads of department and chief financial officers in South Africa have been placed under enormous pressure by politicians to bend compliance rules.
The immediate cause of the economic crisis that brought many thousands of Sudanese onto the streets and continued beyond al-Bashir’s downfall lay in the structure of the economy itself.
Although still hugely popular in rural areas, we found that there is little or no support from the government to develop the local brew industry because it’s viewed as unhygienic and hard to tax.
The black middle class are angry at their exclusion from mainstream economic activity.
Wealth inequality in South Africa is not only intolerably high, its also not reducing.
Some entrepreneurship support models work better than others. Governance and structure is key to their success, or failure.
Responsible mineral sourcing programmes in the DRC have their flaws.
Half of South Africa’s population remain chronically poor, and the quarter in-between struggle to stay out of reach of destitution.
The US needs to review whether a security agenda based on US priorities will solve problems in sub-Saharan Africa.