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FACULTY OF commerce
by the Swedish International Development Cooperation
Agency (SIDA) through the Environment for Development
(EfD) Initiative managed by the Environmental Economics
Unit (EEU) at Goteborg University. The EfD consists of 6
environmental economics research centers in developing
countries (Costa Rica, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, South
Africa and Tanzania), the EEU and Resources for the
Future in Washington DC, US. The EfD Initiative provides
EPRU with a rich network of highly skilled academics
trained in environmental economics to draw on.
The existing focus of EPRU’s research projects are in
the following areas: biodiversity and ecosystems
management; responses to climate risk; distributional
consequences of climate policy; poverty, service delivery
and local environmental quality; community based
resource management; fisheries; behavioural aspects of
natural resource management including risk preferences
and cooperative behavior.
EPRU is coordinated by Mare Sarr (Director) and Jane
Turpie (Research Convener). In addition, EPRU comprises
of four senior research fellows (Anthony Black, Martine
Visser, Edwin Muchapondwa and Anthony Leiman);
eight junior research fellows (Kerri Brick, Reviva Hasson,
Johane Dikgang, Sunday Adewara, Byela Tibesigwa,
Grant Smith, Sue Snyman and Coretha Komba); an
administration officer (Letitia Sullivan) and four domestic
research associates (Stephanie Giamporcaro, Precious
Zikhali, Harald Winkler and Andrew Marquard).
A number
of PhD and Masters students are also being funded and
supervised by EPRU.
EPRU’s research fellows are actively involved in the School
of Economics teaching programmes in environment and
natural resource economics and also in the broader
university. Our research fellows have been particularly
prolific with a publication record of 16 papers in reputable
international and local journals, 4 discussion papers and
a book chapter.
EPRU has collaborated with a number of local and national
stakeholders on medium-size projects, such as The South
African National Parks in the wildlife sector, The Department
of Water Affairs and Forestry in the water sector, The
Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism on marine
and coastal management, and the City of Cape Town on air
quality management and energy savings. Increasingly the
unit’s research is being channelled into research outputs
accessible to policy makers.
Southern Africa Labour and Development
Research Unit (SALDRU)
The Southern Africa Labour and Development Research
Unit (SALDRU) carries out research in applied empirical
microeconomics with an emphasis on labour markets,
human capital, poverty, inequality and social policy.
SALDRU is governed by an executive committee. It strives
for academic excellence and policy relevance.
SALDRU was founded in 1975 and, in the apartheid years,
conducted a number of important surveys revealing the
negative impacts of apartheid on the population. In the
post-apartheid period, SALDRU has continued to gather
data and conduct research directed at informing and
assessing anti-poverty policy. Recent survey projects
include the ongoing Cape Area Panel Study, the Financial
Diaries Project, the Public Work Research Project and the
Quality of Life Survey. In 2006 the Presidency awarded
SALDRU the tender to set up and conduct the base wave
of South Africa’s first national panel study of well-being,
the National Income Dynamics Study. In 2009, SALDRU
won the tender for the second wave of NIDS and in
2011 won the tender for the third wave. Fieldwork for the
third wave will be conducted in 2012. In January 2011
J-PAL Africa was launched as a project within SALDRU.
Linked to a global network of researchers, J-PAL Africa
will build capacity within Africa to run randomized impact
evaluations of anti-poverty programmes.
Currently SALDRU’s research team includes a Director
(Professor Murray Leibbrandt), a permanent Associate
Professor, the Executive Director of J-PAL Africa, 3
Post-doctoral Fellows, a Survey Manager, 2 temporary
researchers, 19 research associates from within the
School of Economics, 4 honorary research associates.
There are 19 research affiliates, reflecting SALDRU’s
active national and international research collaborators.
The NIDS survey office is run by the survey manager and
contains 7 dedicated staff and, during fieldwork, up to 30
temporary staff members. The J-PAL Africa office is run
by the Executive Director, Kamilla Gumede, and has four
research assistants.
Aside from the National Income Dynamics Study and the
work of J-PAL Africa, current research work falls into the
following research themes:
• The Data Quality Project in collaboration with
DataFirst (funded by the Mellon Foundation).
• Fertility and Intergenerational Transfers (funded by the
Hewlett Foundation and Population Reference Bureau).
• Post-apartheid Poverty, Employment, Education,
Health and Migration dynamics (funded in 2011 by
the NRF Research Chair in Poverty and Inequality
Research and the National Institutes of Child
Health and Development and the Centre of Higher
Education Transformation).
• Social Protection, Public Works and the Labour
Force (funded by the International Development
Research Centre, the Ford Foundation and the
British ESRC).
• The Economics of Tobacco Control in Africa (funded
in 2011 by the American Cancer Society (ACS) and
in 2012 by the ACS and the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation).