The Institute for Democracy in South Africa – förlag

Developing a Transformation Agenda for Zimbabwe analyses the political and economic constraints on the nation's reconstruction and democratic transformation and suggests options for transformation in key sectors as well as lessons learnt from other transformations. The challenges in relation to transitional justice are analysed from an historical context as well as in light of the political dynamics in the country. The urgent need to launch a stabilisation programme is discussed, along with key issues for economic reconstruction. The book also looks at military involvement in politics in Zimbabwe and concludes that robust intervention is needed to reform the security sector.

Effective and transparent government budgeting is vital to any democracy. In South Africa, massive poverty, inequality and unemployment remain, despite the successful political transformation, citizens and Parliament have a particularly important role to play in shaping budget policy and overseeing its implementation. South Africa reached a crossroads in fiscal governance when it passed the Money Bills Amendment Act in 2009, a law which granted Parliament strong powers to amend the budget prepared by the executive. This publication explores the content of the new law as well as the challenges and opportunities arising from it. It also discusses the role of Parliament in ensuring pro-poor budgeting. Good fiscal governance is too important for the wellbeing of South Africans to not be a part of our public conversations.

Since the collapse of apartheid, there have been major increases in migration flows within, to and from the Southern African region. Cross-border movements are at an all-time high across the region and internal migration is at record levels. The implications of greater mobility for areas of origin and destination have not been systematically explored. Migration is most often seen as a negative phenomenon, a result of increased poverty and the failure of development. More recently, the positive relationship between migration and development has been emphasised by agencies such as the Global Commission on International Migration, the Global Forum on Migration and Development, the United Nations Development Programme and the African Union. The chapters in this publication are all based on primary research and examine various facets of the relationship between migration, poverty and development, including issues that are often ignored in the migration-development debate like migration and food security and migration and vulnerability to HIV. The book argues that the development and poverty reduction potential of migration is being hindered by national policies that fail to recognise and build on the positive aspects and potential of migration. As a result, as these studies show, migrants are often pushed to the margins where they are forced to "e;survive on the move"e;. Their treatment violates labour laws and basic human rights and compromises the potential of migration as a means to create sustainable livelihoods, reduce poverty and food insecurity, mitigate the brain drain and promote the productive use of remittances. This book shows that migrant lives and livelihoods should be at the centre of international and African debates about migration, poverty and development.

Social Accountability in Africa: Practitioners, Experiences and Lessons is a collection of case studies from Africa on social accountability. This collection attempts to build a consolidated body of knowledge on social accountability efforts across the continent. The case studies are diverse and present unique approaches to how social accountability strategies and interventions are implemented within different countries. The book is written by practitioners, for practitioners, providing first hand experience of designing and implementing social accountability initiatives and the challenges, methods and successes each one presents.

The book interrogates the relationship between democracy and development and how underdevelopment prevents citizens from participating in democracy. Section One is a collection of experts, writing on key issues such as the single-party state; development policy; poverty, inequality and growth; the institutions of governance; the public service; and the role of civil society. Section Two, Idasa,s Democracy Index 2010, releases Idasa,s findings on Participation, Elections, Accountability, Political Freedom, Human Dignity and Democracy. The third in Idasa,s Democracy Index series, this book argues that democracy needs economic development along with an embedded system of institutions, supported by active citizens and a vibrant political culture.

South Africa,s provincial education departments have been reduced to provincial administrations, for reasons that include the powerful role national government plays in delivering education services. This book looks in detail at education spending and asks: Can we afford to maintain administrations that cannot possibly change the course of poor quality education and engineer a brighter future for our poor and deprived learners? The authors believe this question and the future role of provincial education departments need to be discussed, openly and publicly, without delay.

The implementation of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), 1999 is reviewed in this book, focussing on the development and reform of financial governance arrangements after 2000. South Africa has a long way to go to ensure that financial reforms are translated into service delivery gains. Implementing reforms and making sure that citizens benefit is proving difficult, yet the convergence of various government agencies in addressing financial governance is beginning to inspire the kind of confidence needed to overcome the country's financial governance challenges. The authors find that, despite the challenges, the PFMA has begun to make a difference and, if properly implemented, may still provide the ground for a fundamental transformation of public-sector service delivery.

This inaugural Democracy Index for Botswana is intended to set a benchmark for democracy to be measured against. The tool, developed and honed by Idasa over many years, assesses the depth of democracy in a country through five focus areas: participation, elections, accountability, political rights, and human dignity. The research relies on expert analysis to answer a set of questions that interrogate how closely, in practice, democracy meets the broad ideal of self-representative government. More specifically, to what extent can citizens control elected officials and government appointees who make decisions about public affairs? And how equal are citizens to one another in this accountability process? The purpose of the scores is to assist citizens in making their own judgements, based on the information made available, to stimulate national debate and to provide democracy promoters with a tool for identifying issues and needs that can be addressed by education, advocacy, training, institution building and policy revision. Idasa,s Democracy Index , initially developed for South Africa , is being expanded into Southern Africa in an effort to broaden the capacity of individuals and organisations monitoring and supporting democratic governance efforts in the region.