Op-ed: Will the food industry sacrifice its fat profits for health?
South Africa’s growing obesity epidemic won’t be reversed by preaching healthier eating habits and exercise alone; there’s a growing realisation that the food industry needs to change. Driving through Mpumalanga recently, it was inspiring to see how South Africa’s largest food seller, Shoprite, helps locals to sell fruit and vegetables grown in community gardens in some […]
Cape Talk Interview: The ‘Zero Waste’ Campaign
Keith Roman, from the Zero Waste Association of South Africa, stresses the importance of responsible waste management practices and his involvement in the ‘Create Change’ campaign with DGMT.
South Africa’s Digital Landscape: Is the issue of zero-rating on the to-do list of political parties contesting this year’s elections?
This year we need bold public policies to break cycles of intergenerational poverty and grow our economy. But a review of 13 political party manifestos shows politicians still lack the inspiration to do this. Let’s look at the issue of zero-rating: while expanding fast internet access to schools and reducing the cost of data are […]
What will it take to build a collective response to South Africa’s waste problem?
The last resort in any waste hierarchy is landfill or incineration, yet most of South Africa’s waste ends up in dumps, if not strewn across open spaces or littering our streams and oceans. It’s a problem that requires systemic change and individual-level action. Addressing South Africa’s waste problem needs joint effort from all of us, […]
Enhancing intersectoral collaboration: Lessons from the coordinated donor support to the South African COVID-19 vaccination programme
Despite the increasing importance of intersectoral collaborations to address crisis situations, relatively little is known about how they are organised, managed and governed. Moreover, within the field of public administration, there is still much to learn about how governments can use intersectoral collaboration to effectively address crises. This paper examines the case of the Coordinated […]
Op-ed: SA needs to put our waste in the ‘proper’ place, reduce the production and extend its value
There is no ‘away’ to send our waste to. If it’s not biodegradable and it’s not being recycled, re-used or converted into energy (and most of it isn’t), then it goes to landfill or becomes litter. In 1987, a barge carrying over three thousand tonnes of trash destined for North Carolina from New York became a floating […]