NEIL AGGETT LABOUR STUDIES UNIT (NALSU) Labour Studies Seminar Series, Rhodes University, South Africa.
SEMINAR & WEBINAR: Wednesday, 18th May 2022 4pm, online via Zoom (details below) and live at Eden Grove Seminar Room 2,
SPEAKER AND TOPIC: Siviwe Mhlana: Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS): Reimagining the Global Economy: Alternative Visions for an Equitable and Sustainable Post-Covid-19 Economic Recovery
THE PAPER: The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant implications on the global economy and on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world. In addition, in line with persistent inequities in the distribution of paid and unpaid work in the economy, women and informal workers have disproportionately borne the risks of the ongoing crisis. At the same time, despite global calls to “build back better”, the uneven allocation of resources for recovery between advanced countries and emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) threatens to reverse the progress made in addressing inequalities around the world. This suggests an urgent need for global economic policies aimed, not only, at mitigating the immediate impacts of the virus on economic prosperity and social health, but at recovering livelihoods and fostering economies that are resilient, equitable and sustainable, in the long-run.
Against this backdrop, this paper analyses several economic policy proposals influencing international discussions about a post-COVID-19 economic recovery. The main aim of the paper is to determine the extent to which each of these policies reflects issues concerning EMDEs, particularly increasing vulnerability to external debt, inefficient tax regimes, declining employment security and the lack of or inadequate access to social protection and social services. In addition, the paper identifies several pathways towards a green, just and sustainable economy based on the perspectives of activists, policymakers and indigenous communities in the global South.
SPEAKER: Siviwe Mhlana is a researcher at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) at the University of the Witwatersrand. She completed her MA in Social Policy and Labour Studies at the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) at Rhodes University. Her MA research explored the changing nature of labour-intensive production in post-Apartheid South Africa and the gendered individualisation of risk associated with non-standard, informal and precarious employment. In addition, Siviwe holds a Bachelor of Economics and a Bachelor of Economics Honours from Rhodes University. She has worked as a consultant for organisations such as the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC) and Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). Currently, Siviwe serves on the board of the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ). She is also a research associate in the Rhodes University Department of Economics and Economic History and a member of the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU). Her research interests include international development, labour economics, social policy and gender.
JOINING: if you are attending online, please register in advance by going to
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUqdOGgqTIiHtLiH1MqSWhl1to-5vtZFSUD
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HOSTS: The series is run by the Neil Aggett Labour Studies Unit (NALSU) in partnership with the Departments of Sociology & Industrial Sociology, and Economics & Economic History, Rhodes University and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES).
NALSU, based in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, is engaged in policy, research and workers' education. Built around a vibrant team from disciplines including Sociology and Economics & Economic History, it has active partnerships and relations with a range of advocacy, labour and research organisations. It draws strength from its location in a province where the legacy of apartheid and the cheap labour system, and the contradictions of the post-apartheid state, are keenly felt. We are named in honour of Dr Neil Hudson Aggett, a union organiser and medical doctor who died in 1982 in an apartheid jail after enduring brutality and torture.