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The Institute for African Alternatives and Surplus Radical Bookshop are pleased to invite you to the local Book Launch of “STUNTED: Panopticism and embedded neoliberalism in African States’ Food & Agriculture Policies and the Struggle to End Hunger on the Continent,” edited by Charles Simane, with contributors Roland Ngam, Rachael…

Wilson Sidina: fearless struggle icon By Ryland Fisher When someone like Wilson Sidina dies, it is almost like a part of our history dies with him. He leaves a void that goes much deeper than the loss of an individual. It erodes the memory of the people who became involved…

Apartheid’s Black Soldiers: Un-national Wars and Militaries in Southern Africa Lennart Bolliger Jacana Media, 2023. R330.00 Review by Lance Siddert It is the fate of the numberless legions of black soldiers in the employ of European imperial and settler states in southern Africa over the past two centuries to be…

German Rule, African Subjects: State Aspirations and the Reality of Power in Colonial Namibia Jürgen Zimmerer Jacana Media, 2022, R330 Review by Mohamed Adhikari This landmark work is a most welcome addition to my bookshelves, as I am sure it will be for those, who like myself, have an abiding…

By Jane Ndlovu Jane Ndlovu is a Senior Lecturer, specialising in taxation, at the School of Accountancy, University of the Witwatersrand. South Africa’s minibus taxi industry has long courted controversy, most recently in Cape Town where a taxi strike in August 2023 erupted into violence. That said, it’s a highly…

Reform process fails to fill this development gap By Siphe Zantsi Dr Siphe Zantsi is a research fellow in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension at the University of Fort Hare. His PhD thesis is on South African land redistribution and he has published widely on the subject. He…

Reversing the trajectory of food insecurity in Africa By Amiena Bayat, Claire Quinn, Julian May and Hemish Govera Professor Amiena Bayat is Associate Professor of Economics at the Institute for Social Development (ISD), University of the Western Cape (UWC). She is a research fellow with Food Systems Research Network for…

Fleeing danger to possible disaster … and death   1 June 2023 – 31 August 2023 The last three months have again been marked by repeated drownings of migrants leaving the shores of Africa for Europe. Boats small and large from Egypt, Senegal, Libya and Tunisia have foundered and capsized…

An institutional perspective on ethics and accountability By Gary Pienaar and Narnia Bohler-Muller Prof Narnia Bohler-Muller is a divisional executive in the HSRC’s Developmental, Capable and Ethical State (DCES) research division. She holds a Doctorate in Law (LLD) from the University of Pretoria. Bohler-Muller specialises in participatory democracy and social…

In his address to the workshop, Associate Professor of Public Law at the University of Cape Town Richard Calland reminisced about his involvement in the early 1990s around Parliament’s first code of conduct, which was drafted by former cabinet minister and legal scholar Kader Asmal. Prof Calland also drew attention…

Ian Todd is head of Britain’s Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), a statutory body that sets and pays the salaries of UK MPs and their staff – and monitors their expenditure. PSA was established in the wake of a major political scandal in the UK in 2009 over MPs’ expenses…

Ethics, Parliament and the elected representative Why have our codes of conduct failed? By Moira Levy Moira Levy is Media Manager at the Institute for African Alternatives (IFAA), the Production Editor of its flagship journal, New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy and coordinator of IFAA’s DECODE…

Another milestone reached: New Agenda on the road to renewal By the New Agenda editorial collective As described in previous issues of New Agenda, the publishers of the journal, the Institute for African Alternatives (IFAA), are taking active steps to ensure that New Agenda retains its accreditation with the Department…

“Democracy has come some way – and has a long way still to go“ By Martin Nicol The novelist, Upton Sinclair, wrote in “The Jungle” published in 1906 – “…when election day came, … the same night watchman took Jurgis and the rest of his flock into the back room…

Surplus Books, IFAA, Project 90 by 2030, the PHA Food and Farming Campaign, and the Baha’i Faith Community invite you to a celebration of World Food Day. This event will feature a film screening of the acclaimed documentary “The Ants and the Grasshopper” and a presentation, focusing on Climate Change…