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Poverty and Inequality
social dynamics. This is a dream research agenda as it
combines maximum social relevance with the possibility
of frontier social science. Quantitative analysis of social
dynamics is SALDRU’s particular strength in both the
South African milieu and the international one and 2012
reflected this well:
SALDRU won a large, three-year NRF/DST grant
under a “Grand Challenges” call to undertake
research and training on South Africa's unfolding
human and social dynamics: Evidence from
longitudinal data.
SALDRU joined a 19-country consortium that
won a European Union “NoPoor” competition
to undertake a five-year research programme on
effective poverty alleviation policies.
A research proposal on the impact of fertility on
education and employment outcomes was one of
eight successful proposals at the end of a two-
round international call for research on population
and poverty by a group of funding agencies from
the USA, the UK, the Netherlands and Norway.
Canada’s International Development Research
Centre funded an eighteen-month project on the
impact of social grants on youth labour supply.
All of these opportunities require the application of
international best practice in evidence-based policy-
making from SALDRU’s researchers and those who work
with this group.
A major event in 2012 was the Carnegie3 national
research initiative
Strategies to Overcome Structural
Poverty and Inequality in South Africa,
which was led
by Professor Francis Wilson, the founding director
of SALDRU. In addition to the extensive conference
programme, special sessions were run by NIDS and by
J-PAL Africa on the use of evidence in policy-making.
(see project insert).
Furthermore, in a programme that is highly
complementary to the Carnegie3 process, SALDRU
was tasked by the National Treasury to lead a three-
year research initiative that focuses national research
energies on issues of employment, income distribution
and inclusive growth and creates a national dialogue
in these areas. This research project was launched
at the Carnegie3 conference, and the associated
Econ3X3 online forum was launched in November (see
project insert).
The Children’s Institute’s
Child Gauge 2012
focused
on inequality and SALDRU was privileged to partner
with the Institute in this Gauge. Associate Professor
Ingrid Woolard was one of the editors and there
were a number of SALDRU contributors. During 2012,
SALDRU also undertook research for the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development and the
World Institute for Development Economics Research.
Apart from SALDRU’s role in national and international
research initiatives, the unit was active in a number of
capacity-building programmes in 2012. J-PAL Africa
undertook an ambitious training agenda for researchers
and senior policy makers in South Africa, Malawi,
Kenya and Ghana. In addition, SALDRU’s UCT Training
Programme in Social Science Research Using Survey
Data ran for the 14
th
year in January, and trained 140
researchers from Southern Africa in basic survey analysis.
This was replicated in Ghana in July. Subsequently, two
courses were held in South African and one in Uganda
in advanced panel data analysis, thereby extending the
reach of the unit to the continent.