Special research projects
The Institute operates a number of Special Research Projects as set out below.
- Dick Gawith Project
Aided by a bequest from Dick Gawith, who was for many years an
individual member, the Institute has embarked on a comprehensive
analysis of key laws intended to provide redress for past disadvantage.
Such laws include:
- The Employment Equity Act of 1998;
- The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair
Discrimination Act of 2000;
- The Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development
Act of 2002;
- The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of
2003 and its codes of good practice.
Also relevant are:
- Various black economic empowerment (BEE)
initiatives, including the sectoral charters adopted to promote BEE;
and
- The government’s policy of redistributing 30% of
farmland by 2014.
Since Mr Gawith wanted his bequest to help attain ‘genuine
non-racialism’ in post-apartheid South Africa, the project will also
explore the meaning of this concept and the extent to which these
transformation laws and policies promote or undermine this goal.
- Maurice Webb Project
This project (named after the trust that sponsors it) endeavours to establish a comprehensive archival and opinion record on racial discourse since 1994. The Maurice Webb Project is in the process of analysing race relations, as represented by opinion leaders in the media between 1994 and 2007. The aim of the project is to see how the debate around race relations, and our understanding of it, has diverged, mutated and influenced many areas of South African political life in the name of genuine reconciliation and non-racialism.The project is also conducting in-depth interviews with opinion leaders who featured prominently in these debates over the period, to follow up on certain issues, and ask why we are where we are, in terms of race relations, today.
- 10 Pillars of Democracy Project
In 2007, with sponsorship from the Belgian Embassy, the Institute launched a monitor of South Africa’s performance as a democracy. The following ten criteria will be used:
- The rule of law;
- Individual rights, responsibilities, and opportunities;
- Democratic governance;
- Targeted and effective government;
- Scope for free enterprise, both big and small;
- Liberation of the poor;
- Growth-focused policies;
- Racial goodwill;
- Vigorous and vigilant civil society; and
- Good citizenship
The project will begin by providing a comprehensive report on South
Africa’s performance since 1994. Findings will be presented to a
conference in 2009. Thereafter, the monitor will be updated
annually.
- Free Society Project
Since the advent of democracy, the Institute has been monitoring South Africa’s performance as a free society with sponsorship from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Germany and the International Republican Institute in the United States, whose funding is partly derived from the National Endowment for Democracy in the US. Fast Facts is used as a vehicle for publication of relevant information, as is the Chief Executive’s column in Business Day. The project also makes relevant comment in other newspapers and in the broadcast media.
SAIRR Today: Winds of change at the Union Buildings - 10th October 2008
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