Current News
The latest news for the Development Policy Research Unit. Please go to the archive for older news articles.
The DPRU is pleased to invite applications from suitably qualified and experienced persons for Junior Research Fellows. The successful candidates will be involved in original empirical research, data analysis, report writing, and publishing.
NRF Call for HONOURS 2022 Bursary Applicants: South African citizens can apply for Honours post-graduate bursaries broadly within the fields of poverty, inequality, and labour markets, with Prof Haroon Bhorat, Director of the DPRU.
The 2021 JOBS & DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE will take place on September 1-3, 2021. In light of the health safety recommendations and uncertainty pertaining to international travel, the conference will be virtual. Registration for the general public is now open.
Our latest working paper, "Can cash transfers aid labour market recovery? Evidence from South Africa’s special COVID-19 grant", authored by Prof. Haroon Bhorat and Tim Köhler, provides a quantitative, descriptive analysis on COVID-19 grant receipt as well as causal estimates of the receipt of the grant on labour market participation by adopting a quasi-experimental econometric approach.
We are inviting qualified and experienced research organisations, policy practitioners and research specialists, preferably those who have been involved in sectoral masterplan development under the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) or a related Department, to submit proposals to facilitate and develop a delivery model and toolkit for the development and implementation of masterplans.
Deadline extended: The DPRU is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (PDRF) to grow their research expertise, generate valuable research outputs and produce peer-reviewed publications.
The Economic Research and Coordination unit of the dtic is inviting qualified and experienced research organisations, policy practitioners and research specialists to submit proposals to facilitate and develop the Cannabis Master Plan.
Prof. Haroon Bhorat, DPRU Director, recently presented at the "Lockdown Economics: Will the Economic Recovery Plan Work?" webinar, hosted by The Brenthurst Foundation and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.
Authored by Haroon Bhorat, Morné Oosthuizen and Ben Stanwix, this new DPRU working paper emphasises that social assistance to mitigate the consequences of Covid-19 should not be viewed necessarily as a standard poverty reduction exercise, but rather as an attempt to mitigate Covid-related income shocks for the vulnerable who were most negatively affected by the pandemic.
Prof. Ravi Kanbur presented a memorable TB Davie Memorial Lecture yesterday, on ‘Economic Inequality and Academic Freedom’. Nominated to be this year's speaker by Prof. Haroon Bhorat, DPRU Director, Ravi (who is a long-time research collaborator of the Unit, and a prolific co-author too), focused on the role of economic resources in determining opportunities in academic education and research, i.e. freedom in the positive sense.
Authored by Haroon Bhorat and Tim Köhler, a new NIDS-CRAM Wave 1 Working Paper being published today, is titled "Covid-19, social protection, and the labour market in South Africa. Are social grants being targeted at the most vulnerable?".
Development of Public Sector Furniture Technical Procurement Guideline/Specification for South Africa