Venue: UNISA Building, Pretoria

The recent joint FES/IGD Roundtable Discussion on the South African Development Partnership Agency (SADPA) – an agency still in the construction phase within government which, when launched, will coordinate South Africa’s development assistance. Issues discussed were SADPA in the context of emerging South-South Cooperation; contemporary International Development Cooperation and emerging actors, as well as options for the creation of SADPA. Guest speakers included Dr Sven Grimm of the Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University, Ms Elizabeth Sidiropoulos of the South African Institute for International Affairs and Ms Lyndsey Duff of the Institute for Global Dialogue.

Title: COP17: South Africa and the road to Durban 2011

Date: 4-5 July 2011

Venue: Burgers Park Hotel, Pretoria

FES South Africa and the Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD) co-hosted this event in the run-up to the upcoming UNFCCC Negotiations to be hosted in Durban, South Africa from 28 November to 9 December 2011. This international conference provided an overview of the challenges facing the multilateral environmental negotiations and the challenges facing South Africa in hosting the COP17 talks in late 2011. Finally, the conference also considered the prospects for a future agreement arising out of the talks and the development of a new climate change regime against the backdrop of the contemporary geo-political order.

FES/WTO Regional Dialogue on "Current and Future Challenges for the Multilateral Trading System - Perspectives from Southern Africa" Cape Town, 15-18 November 2010

South Africa & Emerging Power Alliances: IBSA, BRIC, BASIC Hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and the Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD), Burgers Park Hotel - Pretoria, 5 November 2010 See programme

The Misunderstanding between the Media and Civil Society

Axel Schmidt, Resident Representative of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Office in South Africa, speaking about the misunderstanding between the media and civil society in his opening remarks at a roundtable discussion, which sought to probe how the South African media reports on the economy.

Schmidt explained that there is an increasing need for fresh discussion and for organisations to identify shared interests.

At a recent gathering regarding the 2010 Media Barometer that is developed with the Media Institute of Southern Africa, he had noted the excellent quality of the contributions of civil society and media practitioners.

But, it appears that there is a lack of common understanding between the print media and civil society, in a context where the political landscape has become more difficult for the media, and there is a commonly acknowledged tendency to restrict media freedom. There has been an unprecedented attack on the Constitution and the media appears to have taken for granted that the historic civil society allies would be supportive, when in fact this has proved not to be the case, and often those allies have been the strongest critics. This has to do with lack of proximity to specific audiences and not civil society at large.

Schmidt made these remarks at the event held in mid September and co-hosted by SACSIS and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung South Africa Office.

Media representatives that spoke at the event included Nic Dawes (Editor in Chief of the Mail and Guardian), Alide Dasnois (Editor of the Cape Times), Mondli Makhanya (Editor in Chief of Avusa Media and Chairman of SANEF) as well as Reg Rumney (Head of the Centre for Economics Journalism in Africa, Rhodes University).

"The Future of social democracy" conference in Cape Town: Currently the concept of social democracy seems to be in crisis. Even in its historical centre Europe social democratic movements are loosing constantly electoral support. The discussion group therefore sought to discuss the reasons for this crisis... Read more

Transformation of state seminar V "Sourcing finance for development": Contrary to South Africa Brazil was very successful in creating high growth of GDP and of employment and expects an even increasing growth in the next years. Thus it seems fruitful...Read more

NUMSA TRAINING WORKSHOP	Apr 18 2011
Read More
Transformation of state seminar VI	May 28 2010
The last seminar of the Tranformation of state seminar series intented to bring the results of the previous seminars together in order to produce a document to inform economic policy choices by government Read More
(Roundtable) Framing the Debate: The Developmental Agenda for Social and Economic Development in a new Employment	May 26 2010
A roundtable discussion about necessary linkages between economic and social policy in South Africa Read More
Expert meeting: "Foreign policy: South Africa as an emerging Actor in Development Cooperation"	May 18 2010
For two days the South African Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ebrahim Ebrahim stayed in Germany to inform himself about the German development cooperation. The meeting was supposed to assist the South African government in building up a national development agency. Read More
"The itinerary of social democracy" lecture of the British historian Donald Sassoon	Apr 26 2010
Lecture and discussion with Prof. Donald Sassoon from the Queen Mary University of London Read More
"The future of social democracy" conference in Cape Town	Apr 22 2010
The two days lasting conference about the challenges for social democracy and its importance for South Africa's socio-economic problems. Read More
Transformation of state seminar V: Sourcing finance for development	Apr 21 2010
A discussion with Dr. Joao Ferraz (director of the research and planning department of the brazilian development bank BNDES) Read More

Top Print page