Keyword: poverty

Seizing the Policy Moment: Making Social Security Work

Picture: khalilshah/Fickr Isobel Frye - South Africa has arguably one of the most extensive social security systems amongst developing countries. Currently just over 12 million people receive some form of social assistance grant, and in addition we have a number of social insurance schemes, including the Unemployment Insurance Fund and private pension and provident funds which together form a social security system. The main historical objective of social security is to secure people against vulnerability which arises as a...

The Fault Lines of Urban Poverty and Inequality Create an Explosive Mix for Xenophobia

Picture: Ismail Farouk Frank Meintjies - The growth in immigrants from the rest of Africa to South Africa, and attacks on such immigrants, dates to the mid-1990s. What has changed today is that South Africa is home or temporary host to exponentially more immigrants. What is different today is that immigrants are infinitely more intertwined in the lives of ordinary South Africans. South Africans are generating profits in other African countries. There is a roaring export trade to those countries. Today also, many middle class South...

Emma Thompson Interview

Loic.tv - Emma Thompson is one smart lady. An actor and activist of note, Loiclemeur caught up with her at the World Economic Forum in January 2008 -- conducting an interview with her, which streamed live onto an interactive platform on the Internet via his cell phone. In this interview, Ms. Thompson comments on the potential of the Internet to mobilize people, her activism against sex trafficking, as well as, the disjunct of the financial markets from people in Southern Africa. She argues that...

Banked into Submission (The Globalizationist's Guide to Developing Poverty)

Pinky Show - The socially conscious cats from the Pinky Show have developed a simple but accurate account of the World Bank and IMF's (International Monetary Fund's) role in globalising our world and particularly its economy. The cartoon is highly recommended for its clarity in demystifying the role of the developing world's super bankers, who far from alleviating poverty, actually aggravate it.