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The purpose of South Africa's White Paper on Science and Technology was to set South Africa on a path away from its historically exclusive and relatively dysfunctional National System of Innovation to one more inclusive in its representation and dealings with civil society, the private sector and the marginalised - particularly the poor. Despite the links of subsequent science, technology and innovation policies and strategies to development outcomes, the focus on the poor was notably overlooked. In the decade since the White Paper was released, the gradual and minimal 'trickle-down benefits' of innovation failed to address increasing inequality, unemployment and subsequent poverty across South Africa. Evidence from our study of four rural district municipalities, using a purposively designed snowball sampling approach, indicates that current innovation activities in these areas appear prominent in the service or tertiary economic sector. This evidence reinforces prevailing ideas that the service sector is an important area for innovation and development, while the primary sector, including agricultural activities, remains important but perhaps less than previously emphasised. The high number of public, private and non-profit enterprises innovating in the service sector delineates this sector as a crucial entry point for innovation linked development. However, several prevailing trends with regard to innovation networks and the diffusion of innovations exist as challenges across all three sectors. These obstacles need to be overcome if the innovation and development nexus is to be strengthened and lead to broader local socioeconomic development and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the link between foreign direct investment (FDI), democracy and economic growth on a panel of eight Southern African countries for 1980-2014 using the system generalized method-of-moment (GMM) estimator. We find that FDI has a direct positive effect on economic growth and that strong democratic institutions are a significant driver of economic growth in the sample countries. The impact of FDI on economic growth is dependent on the level of democracy in the host countries. This implies that countries with strong democratic institutions are better able to absorb the positive spillovers from FDI. In policy terms, Southern African countries should sustain the institutional reform policy agenda already in place in order to benefit more from the significant inflows of FDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate compatible development (CCD) has emerged as a new concept that bridges climate change adaptation, mitigation and community-based development. Progress towards CCD requires multi-stakeholder, multi-sector working and the development of partnerships between actors who may not otherwise have worked together. This creates challenges and opportunities that require careful examination at project and institutional levels and necessitates the sharing of experiences between different settings. In this paper, we draw on the outcomes from a multi-stakeholder workshop held in Mozambique in 2012, the final in a series of activities in a regional project assessing emerging CCD partnerships across southern Africa. The workshop involved policymakers, researchers and representatives from NGOs and the private sector. We employ a content analysis of workshop notes and presentations to identify the progress and challenges in moving four case study countries (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe) towards CCD pathways, by exploring experiences from both project and policy levels. To advance institutional support for the development of successful CCD policies, practices and partnerships, we conclude that there is a need for: (a) institutional development at the national level to strengthen coordination and more clearly define roles and responsibilities across sectors, based on the identification of capacity and knowledge gaps; (b) partnership development, drawing on key strengths and competences of different stakeholders and emphasising the roles of the private sector and traditional authorities; (c) learning and knowledge-sharing through national and regional fora; and (d) development of mechanisms that permit more equitable and transparent distribution of costs and benefits. These factors can facilitate development of multi-stakeholder, multi-level partnerships that are grounded in community engagement from the outset, helping to translate CCD policy statements into on-the-ground action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), now in its fifth iteration, has significantly evolved both in its content and as a process. Over the years, successive conferences have placed emphasis on various aspects of African development, and there have also been attempts to make the conference and its spin-offs more inclusive. The fourth TICAD, held in 2008, signalled the most significant effort by the Japanese authorities to improve the effectiveness and impact of the TICAD process. This was against the background of Japan's continued economic troubles and increased domestic pressure to more efficiently use Japan's dwindling aid resources. As a result, while the product of deliberation with African stakeholders, the TICAD IV outcomes reflect many of Japan's domestic and strategic priorities. This essay takes stock of the principal outcomes of TICAD IV and their implications for Japan's economic cooperation with the Southern African region. It does so from the position that Japan's broad economic links with Southern Africa have followed a distinct pattern over the past 10 to 15 years. The essay reviews general tendencies in Japanese aid and investments to Southern Africa against the backdrop of developments in Japan's wider Africa policy. It discusses some of the prominent outflows of TICAD IV and concludes with an assessment of their implications for the subregion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In recent years, an upturn in international commodity markets and the poor development performance of mineral rich African countries have catalysed the resurgence of debate and policy initiatives focused on extractivist models of growth in southern Africa. Beginning with debates on the 'resource curse', the East Asian developmental state and 'developmental patrimonialism', we extend the discussion to consider key unique challenges in contemporary African states: questions of finance and debt leverage, foreign capital domination and the problematic legacy of neoliberal structural adjustment. We consider the cases of Zambia and Zimbabwe, two countries heavily reliant on mining, in which current policy interventions have sought to anchor developmental state ambitions in the restructuring of the minerals sector. These cases illuminate the significance of current developmentalist politics in southern Africa, and underscore their specificity and constraints. Developmentalist projects are unlikely to succeed in the short term, but retain importance as emerging points of critique of neoliberal states in transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southern Africa is probably the most unevenly developed region on earth, combining the most modern technologies and an advanced working class with the world's extremes of inequality and social militancy. The two most extreme countries, both with settler-colonial populations and accumulation processes that created durable class/race/gender distortions and extreme environmental degradation, are South Africa and Zimbabwe-both of which Neil Smith visited in 1995. His contribution to our understanding of political economy, before and after, was exemplary. We consider in this article how Smith's theory assisted in the understanding of crisis-ridden financial markets within the framework of capital overaccumulation and intensified spatial unevenness; the politics of scale, difference and community; and the ways that class apartheid and durable racism in the two countries together fit within contemporary geopolitical economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the regional dynamics of African agency in the case of negotiations on an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and a group of Southern African countries, known as SADC-Minus. I argue that these negotiations were shaped by a pattern of differentiated responses to the choice set on offer under the EPAs by SADC-Minus policy makers and by a series of strategic interactions and power plays between them. I offer two contributions to an emerging literature on the role of African agency in international politics. First, I argue for a clear separation between ontological claims about the structure–agency relationship and empirical questions about the preferences, strategies and influence of African actors. Second, I suggest that, in order to understand the regional dynamics of African agency, it is important to pay close attention to the diversity and contingency of African preferences and to the role of both power politics and rhetorical contestation in regional political processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study of a fish market near the border of Namibia and Zambia examines how economic and environmental changes have affected the marketing channels associated with fishery in southern Africa. We monitored the volume and origin of fish entering the market in Katima Mulilo, Namibia, between 2007 and 2012, and conducted semi-structured interviews with fish committee members and market vendors. Prior to 2010, the market for fish had a simple commodity chain, involving local producers and consumers. Since then, a nearby lake has refilled, providing a new source of fish. The market has expanded and diversified, with large volumes of fish now being sent to consumers in urban centres in Zambia and even to the Democratic Republic of Congo. We consider the sustainability of the fishery in relation to expansion and re-alignment of the marketing channel and the degree to which intra-regional trade in fish promotes or hampers food security and sustainable use of the resource. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies on conservation and development often point out that interventions rely on anti-political manoeuvring to acquire legitimacy and support. Recent ‘aidnography’, in particular, has done much to expand and add nuance to our understanding of the complex, micro- (anti-)politics at work in conservation and development interventions. In doing this, however, aidnography seems to have led the focus away from two crucial, broader issues related to conservation and development interventions: how they are regulated through the wider, neoliberal political economy, and how this fuels and obscures (global) inequality. Drawing on empirical research on a transfrontier conservation and development intervention in Southern Africa, this article argues that the differential workings of anti-politics in practice warrant a renewed appreciation and a more explicit political operationalization of the concept. This is done by re-emphasizing anti-politics as an essential political strategy within conservation and development interventions and as an intrinsic element of the wider political economy of neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]