The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Saliem Fakir -
The U.S. is putting pressure on South Africa to agree to favourable terms for its poultry producers before it is willing to include South Africa in a new round of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). By removing tariffs on American chicken imports, South Africa, under AGOA, ought to be able to export its own agricultural products with ease, as long as U.S. poultry producers are given free reign in our country.
The deal is at a precipice. South Africa is expected to agree to the...
Busiso Moyo -
Everyone seems to have an interest in food policy these days, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with its ‘Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa’, to the G8 with its ‘New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition’, to social movements, civil society networks and those who simply care about what they eat. Of course, some voices are more powerful than others. It is for this reason that movements of peasants and other small-scale food providers from around the...
Daniel McLaren -
October 16 is World Food Day. As the 20th World Food Day since the establishment of our democracy dawns on South Africa, a grim shadow of hunger and malnutrition hangs over the gains of the democratic era.
Section 27 of the South African Constitution guarantees the right to have access to sufficient food to all people in our country. This and other socio-economic rights were enshrined in the Bill of Rights because their fulfilment was recognised as integral to the Constitution’s...
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa is a harsh country, a place of extremes. Producing sufficient food for our people has always been a difficult challenge.
The new Minister of Agriculture, who can only be an improvement on the previous incumbent, is an interesting choice.
Senzeni Zokwana is the national chairperson of the South African Communist Party, as well as having headed up the National Union of Mineworkers. He has no background in agriculture, in common with his deputy, ex-Police commissioner Bheki...
Stefanie Krasnow -
From 2008 to 2014, insurrectionist activity has sequentially erupted across the globe, from Tunisia and Egypt to Syria and Yemen; from Greece, Spain, Turkey and Brazil to Thailand, Bosnia, Venezuela and the Ukraine.
In every instance, there was a tipping point: in Tunisia, it was Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation; in New York City, it was the Wall Street bailout; in Istanbul, it was a few threatened trees in Gezi Park; in Brazil, it was a 20-cent increase in transit fare. Today, the...
The Nobel Prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, has just issued their much-anticipated report, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. The conclusions are dire: not only are the effects of climate change already occurring on every continent; the world is ill-prepared for what is to come. The report is authored by more than 300 scientists and it is part of a series of reports that are considered the most comprehensive assessments of climate...
