| Date | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| January 2009 | Development of evidence-based policy around small-scale farming | This was undertaken by Ruth Hall and Michael Aliber of PLAAS to inform the Presidency prior to the January Cabinet Lekgotla. This argued that the emphasis of a new national initiative to support small-scale farmers should be on achieving scale and impact, enabling ‘accumulation from below’ for a substantial portion of the existing population of small-scale farmers. This should happen with existing small farmers in districts where there is a high concentration, using a decentralised approach. See Policy Briefs. |
| January 2009 | Youth unemployment in South Africa: cause, consequences and policy challenges |
This was written by Justine Burns of the Department of Economics, University of Cape Town. The report suggests that youth face a significant disadvantage in terms of employment prospects because by virtue of their youth,
they lack the experience or skills to qualify for the positions for which vacancies are available.
It is hard to make the case that high wage costs fully explain youth unemployment since the real wages of youth have been falling over time.
The bulk of available evidence concerning job search assistance programmes (which include skills training and learnerships) suggests that such programmes not only improve labour market outcomes, but that these kinds of programmes may be more effective than other active labour market policies.
It also appears that there is some scope for increasing support to promote youth entrepreneurship. See Policy Briefs. |
| October 2010 | Evidence-based policy development in South Africa: the case of (provincial) growth and development strategies (PGDS) |
This report was undertaken by Zaccheus Matebesi and Lochner Marais of the Centre for Development Support, University of the Free State. Five forms of research evidence (in terms of its origin) were identified in existing PGDSs, namely data (63%, mostly from StatsSA), government policies (7%), government M&E systems (11%), private sector research (7%) and research done by universities and research NGOs (12%).
In less than 1% of the references was evidence used to explain why a specific decision had been made.
Three of the most important factors within government inhibiting evidence-based policy-making processes are a lack of research culture, limited understanding of the links between policy-making and research and a limited ability to deal with the inherent contradictions in research conclusions.
The two most important barriers at the level of research institutions are that researchers seldom communicate their research to policy-makers in a user-friendly way and the fact that researchers do not understand policy making processes. The report concludes that evidence-based policy-making requires a mature relationship between policy-makers and researchers, one in which the parties are willing to listen to one another and together build a collective memory (knowledge hub) of available research for the different provinces. |
| October 2010 | The Premier’s Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) in the Free State Province | This report by ChitjaTwala built on research he was doing for his PhD, and reviewed the experience of the PEAC which was instrumental in using research to support economic policy-making in the Free State. It highlighted how political infighting led to the discarding of this important structure. |