In agreeing with Davidson Nicol of Sierre Leone on the meaning of Africa, Ali Mazrui states that “yes, Africa is a concept, pregnant with the dreams of millions of people”. In fact, in Mazrui’s outstanding book, Africa since 1935, a number of essays take the reader through a number of important issues on Africa and […]
Vusi Gumede
Vusi Gumede worked for the South African government in various capacities and in different departments for 12 years. He has been an academic since 2010. He has held various professorships, fellowships and editorships in and outside South Africa. He is currently a Dean for the Faculty of Economics, Development and Business Sciences at the University of Mpumalanga in South Africa. He holds various qualifications, including a PhD in Economics that he completed in 2003 at the University of Natal. He has published 15 books and over 50 journal articles and book chapters. He has supervised to completion over 20 Masters and Doctoral students as well as undertaken various research projects for institutions in and outside South Africa. He serves in various committees, including the Presidential Economic Advisory Council in South Africa, the International Advisory Board of the Southern African Institute for Policy and Research, the National Council of the South African Association of Political Studies and the Pan-African Federalist Movement.
Posted inBusiness
SA within Southern Africa: Regional economic integration for poverty reduction?
A couple of years ago in a radio interview on South Africa and Africa, my response to a question on how well was South Africa doing compared with the rest of the continent was that “although there are broad areas where one can safely argue that South Africa is doing relatively well compared with other […]
Posted inGeneral
South Africa: Immense and imminent possibilities
Clearly, the weakening value system — manifesting itself in many appalling ways and propelled by various intricate factors — in our society is straining our social fabric and could end up reversing gains made thus far. It is in times like these that some readily invoke WB Yeats’s most quoted line: “Things fall apart, the […]
Posted inGeneral
South Africa: Progress and challenges
As suggested in Elhanan Helpman’s Mystery of Economic Growth, there are many tasks that rest on the shoulders of a (developmental) state. The same line of thinking can be discerned also in Jeffery Sach’s End of Poverty. In our context, for example, it is incontrovertible that the state, or its main agent (that is, the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
South Africa: A developmental state?
Referring to South Africa and/or South Africans, Pusch Commey (in the July 2008 issue of NewAfrican) argues that ‘the trouble is with a massive psychologically-scarred population left behind by a psychologically-devastating system – apartheid’. This is probably one of the few very direct appraisals of the challenges that face us as a country and the […]
Posted inGeneral
South Africans: A tale of contradictions?
In an attempt to illuminate a view that South Africa is a complex case, and not special per se, I said that “South Africans have been consistently giving most of us an impression that we are developing some form of national identity. Public opinion surveys have been showing a trend of improving ‘social cohesion’”. All […]
Posted inNews/Politics
South Africa “under siege”?
“Can I see a falling tear, and not feel my sorrow’s share? Can a father see his child weep, nor be with sorrow fill’d? Can a mother sit and hear an infant groan, an infant fear? No, no, never can it be, Never, never can it be!” “Does spring hide its joy when buds and […]