Tuesday 6 December, 2011 - 11:08
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says that global income inequality increased significantly due to the 2008 economic recession.
In its report ‘Divided We Stand: why income inequality keep Rising’, the organisation says argues that despite robust economic growth since the recession, most emerging markets - including South Africa - have failed to reduce inequality.
Tuesday 22 November, 2011 - 14:53
The recently released draft of the National Development Plan is the first step in charting a new course to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality. There’s justification for planning the future of a developing state and this plan, with its warts and imperfections, is long overdue.
There’s an old proverb; ‘He who fails to plan, plans to fail’ and a business maxim ‘ailing to plan is planning to fail’ and there’s also a military adage of 7 Ps.
Monday 17 October, 2011 - 16:38
A study by the World Bank has revealed that while women far outnumber men in universities, men still earn bigger salaries than their female counterparts.
The World Bank's 2012 report on gender equality and development, which was released in Johannesburg over the weekend, shows that the world is still struggling with certain gender issues.
The study involved 90 countries, including South Africa, and looked at how gender equality evolves among developing countries and developed ones.
Wednesday 14 September, 2011 - 8:29
For the first 19 years of its existence, the Free Market Foundation (FMF) argued, cajoled and pleaded for the total dismantling of the apartheid system and the establishment of true democracy in South Africa, with universal suffrage and a constitution that would highlight the principle of limited government, so as to protect the people from ever again being the victims of the pernicious policies of arbitrary government, such as the discriminatory laws that deprived people of their rights because of the colour of their skins.
Wednesday 20 July, 2011 - 8:50
According to a recent IOL news piece, “Zambia’s Banda says copper windfall tax is ‘bad business’", Zambian President Rupiah Banda has “ruled out windfall taxes for mining companies enjoying record copper prices, saying that changing the rules for foreign investors was plain bad business”. South African authorities can take a leaf out of Banda’s book by rejecting out-of-hand the ludicrous proposals to nationalise SA mines, as opposed to drawing out the process by dispatching a task team to determine nationalisation’s viability.
Wednesday 27 April, 2011 - 21:14
Non-governmental organisation, African Ascension, says that multinational corporations are taking advantage of Africa’s fragile economies in the name of ‘investing’ to exploit the poor.
African Ascension president, Joe Beasley, told the 23rd governing session of United Nations Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) in Nairobi that African governments need to be wary of international business companies out to exploit them.
Thursday 2 December, 2010 - 11:48
Wealthy South Africans are among the world’s most generous philanthropists, motivated by a sense of ‘ubuntu’ and the fact that the country is one of the world’s most unequal societies, according to an ABSA report.
‘Global Giving: The Culture of Philanthropy’ notes that the country is the second-most charitable country, behind the United States.
Wednesday 27 October, 2010 - 10:28
Buffalo City (East London), Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni (East Rand) are the most unequal cities in the world, based on data gathered in a UN-Habitat survey of 109 countries from all regions of the world. These cities had income-based Gini coefficients of 0.71 or more. The Gini index is a widely used measure for the distribution of household income or consumption spending in a country.
Wednesday 14 July, 2010 - 13:15
When one considers the advertising industry, the consistent use of sexualised images of women is a very obvious phenomenon. It is not uncommon to see highly sexualised images of women advertising anything from cars, clothing and mobile phones, to furniture, food and a whole host of other products and services that somehow ‘benefit’ from an association – no matter how mismatched – with a ‘sexy’ woman.
Wednesday 12 May, 2010 - 12:03
In December 2009, human rights groups welcomed Ugandan legislators’ decision to endorse a proposed law banning female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) (2). While this move is an important step toward ensuring the protection of women’s and girls’ rights, as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is not enough to simply pass laws prohibiting the practice.
