Author: The Conversation

by Velenkosini Matsebula and Derek Yu An analysis of financial inclusion in South Africa shows that affordability limits poor households’ access to formal financial services. In our study, which looked at people’s use of financial goods and services between 2008 and 2015, we found that there was a general increase in use. But this was severely skewed to households with higher incomes. Financial inclusion is broadly defined as the ability of people to access a range of affordable financial services. Among these are bank and savings accounts, loans and insurance products. Households that are financially excluded can’t take part in…

by Moses Alobo In April 2020, about two months after the African continent recorded its first case of COVID-19, the African Academy of Sciences undertook an extensive survey of its members. This allowed hundreds of scientists in African countries to identify COVID-19 related research priorities across a range of disciplines. The Conversation Africa’s Natasha Joseph asked Dr Moses Alobo, who is heading the Academy’s COVID-19 response efforts, to explain the survey’s findings and how they can be applied. What was the purpose of the survey, and who took part? The COVID-19 crisis is global, and scientists are still trying to…

by Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo (PhD) Technology is a product of human labour. The working class and society can, therefore, shape its direction. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), long-term technological change has created more employment than it has destroyed, and has pushed overall living standards to new levels, notwithstanding the disruption that it inevitably brings. What’s more, the ILO concludes in a 2017 report, there’s no “clear sense that this will be otherwise in the foreseeable future”. The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies has embarked on a research project comparing countries across the global South to explore, through global…

by David Francis and Imraan Valodia The COVID-19 pandemic has not only generated a far-reaching social and economic crisis in South Africa, but is also exposing two major fault lines in the society. First, the pandemic has starkly exposed the country’s high levels of inequality. Every way in which South Africa is unequal has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Those with high-paying office jobs have largely been able to work and earn an income from their homes. Those in low-paying, precarious work have lost their jobs and income, or have been forced out to work. These same workers have to…

by Harun Šiljak In the middle of the night, invisible to anyone but special telescopes in two Chinese observatories, satellite Micius sends particles of light to Earth to establish the world’s most secure communication link. Named after the ancient Chinese philosopher also known as Mozi, Micius is the world’s first quantum communications satellite and has, for several years, been at the forefront of quantum encryption. Scientists have now reported using this technology to reach a major milestone: long-range secure communication you could trust even without trusting the satellite it runs through. Launched in 2016, Micius has already produced a number…

by Channing Arndt and Sherman Robinson In trying to limit the spread of COVID-19, policymakers globally have the difficult task of balancing the positive health effects of lockdowns against their economic costs, particularly the burdens lockdowns impose on low-income and food-insecure households. In the case of South Africa, the lockdown policies are relatively stringent, and the economic impacts large. The lockdown has two components. First, people have restricted their movement outside their homes and engaged in physical distancing. The result has been a dramatic decline in demand for services. These range across establishments like restaurants, theatres, sporting events and hotels.…

by Mills Soko In six months’ time the world’s gaze will be trained on what is gearing up to be a contentious and hotly contested presidential election in the US. Irrespective of who emerges victorious between the incumbent President Donald Trump and the Democratic nominee Joe Biden South Africa needs to start thinking about what it stands to lose – or gain – from the new administration’s stance. This is especially so in the area of economic relations. Since 1994, trade and investment ties between the US and South Africa have evolved against the backdrop of a complicated political and…

by Miriam Altman There is intense pressure on the South African government to lift the lockdown and open the economy. Sustainably lifting out of the lockdown is critical. But there is no roadmap. The stakes are high and there are no right answers, just ones that juggle uncertain probabilities. Diminishing growth over the past decade has weakened industry and slowed job creation, while state capture damaged state capacity. Unemployment is extremely high, there is extensive poverty and the country has the highest rates of inequality in the world. Efforts to get the economy moving have been thrown off course by…

by Zahraa McDonald, University of Johannesburg The COVID-19 pandemic could be the catalyst for action to address the consequences of inequalities in South Africa’s education system. This is because measures taken to prevent the spread of the coronavirus are unearthing a wide range of systemic problems right across the education landscape – from water shortages to bad sanitation and overcrowding. Over the past two and a half decades the legacies of apartheid have slowly emerged. But never at the scale – or with the impact – inflicted by COVID-19. One example is basic water and sanitary infrastructure. The schools built…

by Steve Reid The National Health Insurance (NHI) has become an idealistic concept known as “imaginary”. It’s become the idea onto which all South Africa’s aspirations for healthcare have been projected. The dream of a system that is fairer, less divided and more efficient. It’s even been called “pie in the sky”. It’s clear that some version of the NHI is going to happen regardless of anyone’s opinion. And its success or failure will be determined by the extent to which all South Africans contribute to it. The NHI is a financing system that will make sure that all South…