Economic Alternatives Indaba, Sustainability Institute

Indaba on Economic Alternatives for a Socially Just South Africa: Sustainability Institute. University of Stellenbosch, with Nthabiseng Moleko (organizer/keynote presenter) and Dominic Brown (AIDC)

Ana Garcia BRICS Policy Centre Dialogur workshop with Action Aid October 2018.

BRICS Policy Centre and Action Aid Dialogue Workshop 2018, Rio.

Community Climate Change Protest 24 May 3019

Youth activists at the Climate Change protest 24 May 2019

Youth Activists Climate Change March 2019

Des D’Sa of SDCEA raising community concerns around climate change and the political economy of Durban at the National Planning Commission Just Transition Dialogue 2019

The local political economy of eThekwini. Poor rail infrastructure has led to both Dube and Durban ports relying heavily on road transport (trucks) for transport.

Inside the Dube Agrizone. Hydroponic cucumber cultivation.

Musina Makhado field trip 2019 Abandoned Coal Mine close to the SEZ

Musina-Makhado Fieldwork 2019 Limpopo Valley

MACUA/WAMUA, SOLVE and ACCEDE meet with communities and climate change youth movements to discuss the impact of the proposed EMSEZ 1 November 2019

Wally Schultz, of Save our Limpopo Valley (Solve) speaks out on the damaging effects the EMSEZ could have and the need for Action.

Lisa Thompson on the history and current developmental status of SEZs in South Africa and the Global South Development Debate

Macua’s Meshack Mbangula on the importance of community involvement on the Musina Makhado SEZ

Musina-Makhado SEZ Fleldwork 2019 Musina

Fatima Vally of WAMUA and Lisa Thompson in search of the heavy industry Zone 1

Musina-Makhado Fieldwork and Activist workshop with MACUA/WAMUa activists Meshack Mbangula, Fatima Vally, Nonhlanlha Sibiya

Africa in the 21st Century, international Colloquium México City 17, 18 and 19 September.

Activist Community Meeting with Climate Change Youth groups Musina Makhado 10 September 2018

Coal mining affected community meeting with the elders under a tree in Mudimele near Makhado with Macua and SOLVE

ACCEDE at the School of Government

ABOUT ACCEDE

The African Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (ACCEDE) was established within the School of Government in September 2007. ACCEDE serves as an organisational and mobilisation space for students and researchers who are involved in activist and research based policy networks that highlight a critical examination of the factors and policy environments which support or inhibit the development of a more inclusive citizenship in Africa and in the global South.

Current research at ACCEDE examines the implications of dominant North-South and South- South policy narratives on development and workers’ rights, as they apply in South Africa.

The ACCEDE research programme builds on previous conceptual and contextual research. Linking Global-Local development debates as they relate to communities, it is case study driven. New thematic areas for 2019 deepen our exploration of the dominant global liberal economic frame in development. We focus on hegemonic narratives in development. In particular the resurgent Global South focus on the importance of export led growth and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). To boost FDI as a way of stimulating industrialization and value chains, international and national policy narratives on FDI center on spatially-bounded Special Economic Zones (SEZs).

The relevance of this research is reflected in the 2019 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) SEZ Report. The report addresses global systemic crises and falling FDI levels, and at the same time reinforces the importance of SEZs in stimulating development globally. In classic liberal economic terms, the report is both mildly critical of some of the weaknesses of SEZs and their limited ability to attract FDI over the long term. Nonetheless the report’s national policy analysis shows a celebratory acceptance of marketing promotion of the three case studies this project investigates: Coega, Dube and Musina-Makhado SEZs.

New Publications

Cyril’s industrial reboot will not drive economy to success

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation address revealed a new direction in economic policy: “import substitution industrialisation”: producing goods