New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy

Editorial

2025-06-25T08:06:31+00:00

In recent years South Africa has seen spectacular and distressing instances of food poisoning in which people have died after eating contaminated food from retail outlets.
In 2024, 23 children died in Gauteng after eating “snacks purchased from spaza shops” (Parliament, 2024). Others became ill and many were hospitalised. Between September and November 2024, a total of 890 incidents of food-borne illnesses were reported across all provinces in South Africa (Ramaphosa, 2024). “In most cases, the illness started after food bought from spaza shops were consumed, but to date, no one has been held responsible” (Korsten, 2025:13).

Africa Diary

2025-06-26T11:39:48+00:00

The incoherent trade policy of the United States moved into uncharted territory in April with the announcement of illogical and destructive tariffs that sent shock waves across the global trading systems. Africa, with the rest of the world, will be profoundly harmed. African countries have often been victims of the globalised economic order, and in ways that make them even more vulnerable to its disruption. Chaotic and unpredictable tariff ‘pauses’, intensifications and exemptions have been announced week after week, further unsettling an already unstable economic and geo-political environment.

Migration in South Africa: Conflicts and Identities. Eddie M. Rakabe and Chris C. Nshimbi

2025-06-25T08:20:09+00:00

Eddie Rakabe and Chris Nshimbi have assembled an interesting collection of chapters dealing with the broadly common theme of the complexity of responding to and managing migration in South Africa today. Some of the chapters are essays, contesting ideas in the context of existing knowledge, while others add to the stock of knowledge itself, presenting on original research.
The sudden influx into South Africa of Zimbabwean migrants in 2008 and 2009 and the emergence, in the same period, of virulent anti-migrant rhetoric and violent anti-migrant actions brought the issue of migration policy to the fore. Since then, it has seldom been out of the frame of South African politics.

New Agenda 97

2025-06-27T14:16:44+00:00

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Navigating power dynamics in food safety governance

2025-06-24T13:45:59+00:00

The 2017–2018 listeriosis outbreak in South Africa had a severe impact on the processed meat industry, prompting significant regulatory changes including the development of the Compulsory Specification for Processed Meat Products (VC 9100). This regulation aimed to improve food safety standards by mandating the implementation of a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points system across all processed meat production facilities. Drafting of the VC 9100 was initiated in 2013 following concerns that existing voluntary standards were inadequate for protecting public health. However, progress was hindered by strong resistance from industry stakeholders who argued that compliance would be financially burdensome, particularly regarding the costs and levies associated with its enforcement. The listeriosis outbreak, which resulted in over 219 deaths, dramatically shifted the regulatory landscape. The crisis brought food safety to the forefront of the national agenda, compelling the government to accelerate the development and implementation of VC 9100. Despite the urgency, industry resistance persisted, with stakeholders lobbying for reduced levies and delaying the regulation's full enforcement. This case study highlights the complex interplay between public health priorities and industry interest in food safety governance. It also demonstrates how crises can serve as catalysts for regulatory change, with the listeriosis outbreak playing a pivotal role in overcoming industry resistance and advancing the implementation of essential food safety measures.

70 years on 'the Freedom Charter is not irrelevant - it is unfinished'

2025-06-25T08:35:23+00:00

When the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955 in Kliptown, it was more than a political manifesto — it was a transformative social contract drafted, as Congress leadership claimed, by ordinary South Africans from all walks of life. Here, Ben Turok, the founder of this Institute, had a big task in collating the material gathered from many working groups on the “ground.”
The two economic clauses—“The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth” and “There Shall Be Work and Security”—were particularly powerful because they addressed not only political exclusion under apartheid, but the deep economic dispossession that had long defined black life in South Africa.

SA says no to aid cuts

2025-06-26T07:40:36+00:00

Amid the havoc wreaked in South Africa's health sector by Donald Trump's guillotining of the United States' international aid programme, Zackie Achmat reminds us that the earliest action against the HIV and AIDS epidemic started as an international grassroots movement that mobilised support from the wealthiest countries. He spoke to Moira Levy about the lessons learned from active citizen engagement in decision-making, especially in the context of the current emergency.

Can citizens say 'no'?: Tracking civil society's impact in Parliament

2025-06-26T08:00:27+00:00

Active citizen involvement, a foundational element of South Africa's democratic framework, aims to ensure that all voices, especially those historically on the margins, are acknowledged and actively incorporated into policy decision-making. Yet this fine principle, clearly stipulated in the Constitution, encounters a fundamental contradiction when it comes up against the challenges of implementation.
In reality, South Africa’s organised civil society today, itself the product of an powerful history of community-based resistance that overcame apartheid, is impeded from fulfilling this constitutional duty by severe shortages of capacity and resources. It is trapped in a tangle of bureaucratic inefficiencies, fragmented government coordination and limited public engagement and awareness.