HSRC Seminars

The HSRC Seminar Series in collaboration with HSRC Press and the HSRC's Democracy, Governance and Service Delivery (DGSD) Research Programme cordially invite you to join us at the Re-launch of the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS)

The conversation aims to discuss some specific challenges of doing empirical and theoretical work on sexuality and politics in the South. The South is not singular, but plural: what are the main challenges on sexuality and politics in Latin America? Are they comparable to the situation in South Africa? What is the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, of social movements, and of democratisation, on sexuality? Buenos Aires, Cape Town and Pretoria are situated at a similar geographical latitude. Are our sexual coordinates also similar? This conversation between colleagues of the South will address current and past work, exchange ideas on both theory, politics and practice, opening up a space for further discussions for research and dialogue.

Dr Campbell's presentation will focus on the following:

• Introducing caring for sick children and palliative care
• Challenges of researching sick children and their caregivers
• Opportunities in research - photography and story telling as methodologies
• What needs to be done further?

This study examines household recycling behaviour among urban South Africans, based on the 2003, 2005 and 2006 General Household Surveys. Research in Europe and North America finds that recycling is more likely when it is easier for household to recycle.  This was true for all South African households. Also, recycling for normative reasons (not to get money) has been found to be strongly related to education and is more common among older people. This was found for non-African households.

The seminar will focus on the following:

• The state of the epidemic
• Internal migration and contextual factors as engines for the spread of the disease
• Reduction in national pie and HIV/AIDS orphans as engines for social instability
• What can be done to tackle the issue

This seminar examines recent South African autobiography and photography, exploring how matters of sexuality and religion unsettle and expand questions of identity.  Visual art by Berni Searle and Zanele Muholi as well as several recently published autobiographies suggest the use of new "documentary dialects" (Desiree Lewis, UWC), to speak about ordinary lives in South Africa, a theme the writer aims to theorise in the paper.

The seminar is postponed until further notice

The long awaited introduction of the Government Wide Monitoring and Evaluation (GWME) policy in South Africa in 2005 and the establishment of the South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association (SAMEA) in 2006  were well applauded by many South Africans who had for many years of a democratic state desired public accountability and better service delivery. These have undoubtedly influenced the establishment of the Performance Monitoring and Evaluation unit in the Presidency by the present Zuma-administration.

Analyses conducted by ESSD reveal major obstacles in the education pathway system. The majority of learners entering FET colleges, nursing training institutions and learnerships have already achieved a National Senior Certificate prior to enrolment. Higher education (HE) is seen as the only viable option for further learning, contributing to the inverted triangle phenomenon in which a small FET college system plays second fiddle to a much larger HE system struggling to retain inadequately prepared students.

You are cordially invited to attend a seminar to be presented by Dr Ian Goldman, Monitoring and Learning Facility in the Programme for Support to Pro-Poor Policy Development in South Africa's Presidency.

You are cordially invited to attend a seminar to be presented by Prof. Edwin Ijeomah, of the School of Public Management and Development, Faculty of Management and Commerce at the  University of Fort Hare.

The institutional failings and performance woes that have culminated in a ‘legitimacy crisis' for the public service have been attributed to the traditional characteristics of public administration. The New Public Management (NPM) framework embodied in the White Paper on the Transformation of Public Service Delivery - Batho Pele has been touted as the prescribed remedy in order to get a ‘better bang for the buck' from public services and mitigate diminishing public confidence.

  Dr Mchiza's presentation will focus on the prevalence of obesity in Africa (featuring South Africa). Despite the fact that the focus of her talk is not on under-nutrition, it is important to highlight that the double-burden of nutrition (i.e. under-nutrition, stunting, in particular in children and over-nutrition, overweight and obesity in adults) is evident in poor communities of Africa. 

At the 2009 Speakers Conference organised by the Pan African Parliament (PAP), the Parliament indicated that it aims to acquire legislative competency in some regional policy areas by 2011. This paper investigates whether the PAP is in a position to successfully pull it off. Since the introduction of Regional Parliamentary Assemblies (RPAs) in the African regionalism space, especially with the establishment of the Pan African Parliament in 2004, there have been efforts from the parliaments and calls from regional experts to confer legislative powers on the parliaments. The push for legislative powers for PAP and other regional assemblies is reasonable as far as parliamentary functions go. However, there are political and institutional challenges.

This presentation is a work in progress overview of a chapter being prepared for the forthcoming sixth Volume of the South African Democracy Education Trust (SADET's) Road to Democracy in South Africa series. Volume 6 deals with the period 1990-1994, and the chapter focuses on the re-establishment of the ANC inside the country after its unbanning, which was publicly announced in the historic speech made by President FW de Klerk in parliament on 2 February 1990.

Since 2008, South Africa has experienced a growing number of service delivery protests most of which revolve around the lack of adequate housing and the accompanying infrastructural facilities, such as water and sanitation. This is despite the fact that since 1994, the government has provided over 2 million subsidised housing opportunities to households whose monthly income is R3500 and below.

Analyses conducted by ESSD reveal major obstacles in the education pathway system. The majority of learners entering FET colleges, nursing training institutions and learnerships have already achieved a National Senior Certificate prior to enrolment. Higher education (HE) is seen as the only viable option for further learning, contributing to the inverted triangle phenomenon in which a small FET college system plays second fiddle to a much larger HE system struggling to retain inadequately prepared students.

Presenters:  Prof Haroon Bhorat and Ms Natasha Mayet, University of Cape Town

The recently published Student Retention and Graduate Destination: Higher Education and Labour Market Access and Success (HSRC Press, 2009) arises out of an erstwhile HRD (now ESSD) research programme study that addressed three key issues in higher education (HE): why students drop out of HE; what leads students to persist in HE to graduation; and what makes for a successful transition to the labour market.

The first commercial mobile call was placed on October 13, 1983. What has started as a simple voice call has transformed into a cultural phenomena of instant communication and broader and equal access to the world at our fingertips. From the ‘brick' phone of the '80s to today's 3G broadband world, mobile communications has evolved from mere voice communication to a new era of data transmission and democratising communications that are transforming the life, commerce and culture of societies all the way.

Dr Pillay holds a PhD in geography from the University of Minnesota, and an MA in geography (cum laude) from the University of Natal. Prior to heading CSD, Dr Pillay was executive head of the HSRC's Surveys, Analyses, Mapping and Modeling (SAMM), and Urban, Rural and Economic Development (URED), research programmes. Dr Pillay has been in executive management for over ten-years.

You are cordially invited to attend this seminar in the 2010 HSRC Seminar Series.

The notion of "measuring the progress of nations" posited by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has received recent attention from a commission led by notable economist Dr Joseph Stiglitz. The recommendations are well-meaning but trite, until some practical attempts to apply them are considered.

The role of energy sources in the choice of industrial development pathways has not been widely acknowledged outside the energy literature. Yet in fact, energy choices are coming to be viewed as critical.

Newcastle University, UK, started collaborating in Africa in the 1980s on research into the epidemiology, clinical and public health impact, and prevention of chronic non-communicable diseases and their complications.