Publications and media
Inequality Matters: Can the GNU solve inequality in South Africa?
South Africa remains the most unequal society in the world, with persistent disparities rooted in the legacies of colonialism and apartheid. Despite three decades of democracy and redistributive polic...
Ameliorating the Consequences of Coal Job Destruction - A Just Transition Policy Matrix Approach
Ensuring a just energy transition in South Africa requires supporting workers to absorb the negative shocks of structural change. Central to this is the design of a comprehensive social protection pac...
Reducing Inequalities: Insights from the EU-AFD Research Facility
In this summary, find more information about the lessons learned, tools, and partnerships developed within the framework of the EU-AFD Facility for Research on Inequalities between 2020 and 2025.
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Beyond Redistribution: Market Power, Firm Structure, and the South African Labour Market
This paper examines how firm structure and market power shape inequality in South Africa. Moving beyond a narrow focus on fiscal redistribution, it introduces a pre-distribution lens that highlights t...
Skills ecosystem mapping of MSMEs located within the Nkangala District Municipality
This paper examines the skills ecosystem for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nkangala District Municipality (NDM), Mpumalanga—a coal-dependent region central to South Africa’s Just Ener...
The Impact of the Green Transition on Jobs in South Africa
One of the key issues in policy discussions over addressing climate concerns the ways in which countries need to and can balance the combating of climate change with job creation and economic developm...
Are Municipal Governance Issues Worsening the Effects of Inequality in South Africa?
In South Africa, inequalities do not exist in isolation but are fundamentally shaped by spatial factors. The legacy of apartheid, which used spatial segregation to enforce exclusionary policies, conti...
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Spatial Inequality, Sub-regional governance and Subjective Well-being - The case of South Africa
This paper examines how spatial variation in inequality and quality of institutions interact to explain variation in subjective wellbeing. Literature suggests that better institutions and lower level...
A Guideline to Using Administrative Data
South Africa is undergoing the early stages of an energy transition away from coal. A planned transition requires social protection policy interventions to mitigate potential negative employment impac...
Opportunities to address inequality in transition
South Africa has high levels of persistent, structural inequality. Social ownership has remerged in recent years as an opportunity to address inequality, particularly in the context of the just transi...
AFD Group's flagship project in the Indopacific
Aligned with France’s Indo-Pacific strategy, AFD Group spearheads impactful projects across the region to address global public goods such as climate resilience and biodiversity protection. With a pre...
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Strengthening Public Employment Programmes in South Africa’s Social Protection Framework
South Africa faces an enduring unemployment crisis compounded by structural inequalities. Public Employment Programs (PEPs) represent a critical intervention in this landscape, offering income support...
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Systemic exclusion from a South African social assistance transfer
Approximately half of the target population is excluded from a South African social assistance programme intended to provide income support to working-age adults—the Covid 19 Social Relief of Distress...
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MacroDev - Semestrial Panorama 2025 #1
As we move into 2025, the legitimacy of the world order inherited from the fall of the Iron Curtain is confronted more than ever with the “ambivalent superpower” of the United States, already describe...
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Public Employment Programmes in South Africa’s Changing Social Protection Landscape
The paper examines the role of Public Employment Programs (PEPs) within South Africa’s evolving social protection landscape, emphasizing their intersection with unemployment, inequality, and social po...
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An Analytical Framework to Assess Green Transition Jobs in South Africa
The threat of climate change and the resultant catastrophic weather events across the globe underpin the need for a shift away from carbon-intensive modes of production. In South Africa, where the gen...
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30 years of the AFD Group in South Africa
2024 marks 30 years of cooperation between AFD and South Africa. From the transition to democracy to the Just Energy Transition, join us on a retrospective journey as we celebrate key milestones in ou...
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Support for the just dimensions of the energy transition in South Africa: technical note
The Just Transition Framework reaffirmed that distributive, restorative, and procedural justice is at the centre of South Africa’s transition to a low-carbon economy. AFD is pleased to announce the...
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AFD Group in South Africa
In 1994, with the dawn of democracy, the AFD Group and South Africa started a partnership aimed at supporting the country’s ambition to build a new inclusive and thriving society. Since then, the AFD...
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Proposal for the extension, redesign, and repurposing of the SRD for the goal of poverty reduction
The study examines the special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant (hereafter ‘SRD’) and provides recommendations to maximise its impact on poverty reduction. The SRD showed itself to be an excel...
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Market research on co-living affordable housing solution in Gauteng, South Africa (Part One)
Respublica, a leading provider of purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) in South Africa and partner of Proparco, aims at developing co-living affordable housing solutions for young professionals...
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