In issue Number#20 we report on a roundtable on “The legacies of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi: A humanitarian approach to service delivery” hosted jointly by the Centre for Scholarship at the University of Pretoria and MISTRA. The panel comprised Prof Leland Ware, of the University of Delaware, Sello Hatang, Chief Executive Officer of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Prof Dilip Menon, a comparative historian and the Mellon Chair in Indian Studies at the University of Witwatersrand, and it was chaired by Prof Sibusiso Vil-Nkomo, Chairperson of the MISTRA Board.
We also report on The African Transformation Report 2014 launched by the African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET) in partnership with MISTRA and on a Dispatch Dialogues event on Poverty, patronage, inequality with Dr Mcebisi Ndletyana and Dr Somadoda Fikeni hosted by the Daily Dispatch newspaper and the University of Fort Hare.
We also include a range of articles by Joel Netshitenzhe, Yacoob Abba-Omar, Dr Mcebisi Ndletyana,David Maimela and Catherine Kannemeyer, including a research paper on “Why inequality matters: South African trends and Interventions”.
This Monthly Briefing also features an interview with MISTRA Board Member, Dr Tanya Abrahamse on “How can scientists make their work relevant for policy?” at the Inaugural meeting of the United Nation’s Scientific Advisory Board in Berlin. And we’re proud to announce that MISTRA is partnering with The Green Fund of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to implement one of its key priority research projects (PRP) – Earth, Wind and Fire: Unpacking the polical, economic and security implications of discourse in the Green Economy.