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What is Poverty

This report seeks to set out some of the critical dynamics that inform the livelihood and coping strategies of poor people living in South Africa today. Specifically it seeks to explore the role played by social grants in a poor community from the perspectives of both grant recipients and people who are not eligible for any form of social assistance living in the same community.

What's new @ the African Labour Research Network

The ALRN has embarked on a number of studies and has successfully completed the study on the hospitality sector. In 2007 May, the NPC meeting held in Johannesburg decided to accept membership of three organisation as follows: Labour Research Services (LRS), Botswana Federation of Trade Unions and Centro de Formacao e de Pesquisa Laboral (CFPLa, Angola).

Gold Mining companies in Africa: Workers' experiences

This booklet forms part of the African Social Observatory (ASO) project, which is coordinated by the National Labour & Economic Development Institute (NALEDI) on behalf of the African Labour Research Network (ALRN). This booklet examines the behaviour of three leading gold producers in Africa, namely Gold Fields (in Ghana and South Africa), Anglogold Ashanti (in Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe) and Metorex (in Zambia). Special attention is given to labour relations and working conditions, company restructuring, HIV/AIDS policies and practices; health and safety and environmental issues and social responsibility programmes.

About the African Labour Research Network (ALRN)

The African Labour Research Network brings together trade unions-linked researchers from all over Africa to undertake joint research and publications in an attempt to develop alternatives to the neo-liberal development path.

Mining Africa: South African MNCs labour and social performances

South African companies have capitalised on the changing political environment to become key investors in the rest of Africa. This report compares three South African multinational companies operating in the African region; Gold Fields (in Ghana and South Africa), Anglogold (in Namibia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe), and Metorex (in Zambia).

The primary focus of this report is on labour relations, labour conditions, restructuring, HIV/AIDS, health and safety, environmental issues, socially responsible investments, and other human rights issues.

Land Reform and Food Security Issues in Angola and South Africa

This study analyses land reform policies in Angola and South Africa with the view to assess its impact on food security. The aim is to look at similarities and differences on agriculture and land reform policies between these two countries. Components of the Agricultural sector are discussed in terms of working conditions, employment, wages, subsistence agriculture, small commercial farmer and large commercial farmer contexts.

Gender and Labour Market Liberalisation in Africa

A number of African countries adopted and formulated structural adjustment policies with the assumption that the effects are gender-neutral. It is now generally acknowledged that women tend to suffer more and gain less from adjustment policies.

Seven labour research centres from seven African countries analysed the current economic and labour policies to see their impact on the labour force and the organised labour movement in general, and women in particular.

Searching for Scapegoats: Ramatex saga continues

The Pending closure of Ramatex, a clothing factory in Malawi that employs close to 8000 workers has created an environment of hostility between labour and government. In this article by Herbet Jauch of the Labour Research Resource Institute (LaRRI, Namibia) discusses three interrelated issues affecting the Namibian clothing industry. This includes the developments in the global textile industry, especially the end of the WTO’s Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) and the “Chinese attraction”.

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Le NEPAD face à ses défis: Alternatives á (à) la mondialisation néo-libérale

Le réseau ALRN a accueilli une conférence, 'Le NEPAD face à ses défis: Alternatives à la mondialisation néo-libérale'. L'objectif de la conférence était de consolider les nombreuses évaluations du NEPAD en une évaluation collective. Le rôle des syndicats dans des aspects de contestation et complétants de NEPAD est particulièrement important. Ce document contient des arguments présentés par des dirigeants syndicaux et d'autres membres de divers mouvements sociaux. La conférence, un événement africain a produit une évaluation importante et a renforcé la contribution africaine du mouvement syndical au processus du développement africain et à la réponse mondiale au néo-libéralisme.

Alternatives to Neo-Liberalism in Southern Africa

The paper gives an overview of Alternatives to neo-liberalism in Southern Africa (ANSLA) argues that the present neo-liberal paradigm that informs and orders the economy and politics of the Southern African region is both anti-developmental and unsustainable. Sections deal with the Socio-Economic-Political Structure of Post-Colonial Southern Africa and presents an alternative strategic scenario.

Trade Union Congress and Internal Democracy : An Essential Component for Social Engagement

Trade unions in Africa should lead the process for developing alternatives that their governments adopt and implement in the pursuit for social change that will take their countries out the present state of dependence. This paper examines the strength of Trade unions in Africa in engaging African governments on economic policy—NEPAD being one such example.

Trade Unions in Africa

Trade unions in Africa is a project by the ALRN. It examines the different socio-economic conditions and labour market environment in various African countries. The aim is to compare and contrast these experiences with a view to developing common response strategies to common issues and strengthen solidarity among network members.

Africa's experience with regional development frameworks: Beyond silence, closure and forgetting

Professor ’Jìmí O. Adésínà, Department of Sociology, Rhodes University, Grahamstown.

This paper explores Africa’s experience with regional development programming before the crafting of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. This is in the light of prevailing amnesia on Africa’s efforts at regional development programmes; something that contrast with memory of Africa’s more political project: the OAU. The paper focuses on the Lagos Plan of Action (LPA, 1980) and Africa’s Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programme (AAF-SAP), as a corrective to this ‘silence’ and invention of history.

The paper examines the discourses central to LPA and AAF-SAP; their diagnoses of the crisis of dependent capitalism in Africa, and prognoses for shifting to a path of sustainable development. The paper examines some areas of strength and weaknesses in these efforts at crafting a continental development programme. The paper concludes with some notes on the continued relevance of diagnoses of Africa’s development crisis at the heart of the LPA and AAF-SAP, and their agenda for overcoming the crisis of dependent capitalism in Africa.

Global Institutions Shaping Water Policy: Water Privatisation in Namibia

The loss of control over the nation’s water resources and the crucial function of water supply - as these steadily come under the control of private monopolies, the gigantic foreign companies and global banks – puts into serious dispute any notion and possibility of independence for a small nation like Namibia. The aim of this paper is to sketch out the global context within which the strategy of water privatisation is unfolding and to look at the way in which global and national institutions interact to produce water policies and technologies at a local level. Ultimately the aim and purpose of this study is to explain the cause and reflect on the consequences of privatising water services in a parched country such as Namibia.

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