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POVERTY AND ECONOMICS
Health and Wealth in South Africa
Professor Diane McIntyre is based in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine and
was the founding Director of the Health Economics Unit in the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Professor McIntyre has provided extensive and high-level policy inputs within South Africa and
other African countries, particularly in relation to healthcare financing issues, including currently
contributing to the development of the National Health Insurance policy. Her current focus is
on conceptual and empirical research centred around how to achieve universal healthcare
coverage in low- and middle-income countries. She has also been centrally involved in
developing health economics capacity within the African region. She holds the SARChI Chair
in Health and Wealth in South Africa in recognition of her pioneering work in this area.
EconomicGrowth, Poverty, and Inequality: Exploring the Interactions
for South Africa
Haroon Bhorat is Professor of Economics and Director of the Development Policy Research
Unit (DPRU) and holder of the SARChI Chair in Economic Growth, Poverty, and Inequality.
He completed his PhD in Economics at Stellenbosch University. His research interests cover
the areas of labour economics, poverty, and income distribution. He has co-authored two
books on labour market and poverty issues in South Africa, and has published more than
150 academic journal articles, chapters in books, and working papers. He has undertaken
extensive work for numerous South African government departments, most notably the South
African Department of Labour, the Presidency and the National Treasury. He has served on
a number of government research advisory panels and consults regularly with international
organisations such as the International Labour Organisation, World Bank, and the UN
Development Programme. Professor Bhorat served as an economic advisor to Presidents Thabo Mbeki and
Kgalema Motlanthe, formally serving on the Presidential Economic Advisory Panel. He is currently an advisor
to the Minister of Finance.
Poverty and Inequality Research
There is widespread recognition of the importance of ensuring that South Africa’s growth
processes embrace the poor and those in the bottom half of the income distribution. This
appointment facilitates a sustained programme of research to measure and analyse South
Africa’s unfolding poverty and inequality dynamics. Professor Murray Leibbrandt, Director of
the Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU), was appointed to this
position. For the last thirty years SALDRU has been conducting large social surveys to generate
the data needed to inform such analysis of poverty and inequality.
DST/NRF SARChI
Chairs associated with this theme
Transfer of income
A third project of the DPRU sets out to add further
dimensions to existing poverty statistics. It plans to do so
through a technique growing in popularity – the National
Transfer Accounts methodology.
It is based on the premise that in any household – or
across households – there would be a certain number
of ‘inter-generational transfers’, explains researcher and
DPRU deputy director, Morné Oosthuizen. Working-age
adults would earn more than they consume, using their
surplus to support others (children, the elderly) who
would, in contrast, consume more than they earn and are
so considered to be in deficit. “The project is really about
understanding that deficit as well as investigating how
long people are in deficit or surplus,” says Oosthuizen.
The second part of the exercise concentrates on the
financing of this deficit by government, be it through