South Africa’s Government of National Unity – Challenges and Opportunities
Date: Monday, December 9, 2024
Time: 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm EST
Location: 14A Washington Mews, New York 10003
Event Overview:
Since the announcement of the South African Government of National Unity (GNU), there has been mixed feelings in and outside the country. To ensure success, it is crucial to understand the challenges and opportunities this presents. Ann Bernstein, founder and executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), South Africa’s leading development think tank will be sharing the challenges and opportunities of South Africa’s government of national unity.
Program:
4:30 pm - 5:00 pm Doors open
5:00 pm – 5:01 pm Introductory remarks by Bill Easterly
5:01 pm – 5:30 pm Talk by Ann Bernstein
5:30 pm – 6:00 pm Q & A with the audience
Speaker:
Ann Bernstein
Ann Bernstein is the founder and executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), South Africa’s leading development think tank. Since its establishment in 1995, CDE has become a powerful national resource for policy direction and big ideas. Ann has written extensively on the key issues facing the country including economic growth, unemployment, cities, the state of the nation and the role of business and markets in development. She has established a wide network of international experts on these and related issues and has considerable expertise in how to insert this knowledge into South African policy debates. She regularly convenes discussions about South Africa’s challenges with leading decision makers across traditional divides. She is a frequent commentator on South Africa’s leading media platforms and has participated in national and global dialogues.
Since the beginning of 2024, CDE has collaborated with experts, business leaders, former public servants and academics in South Africa and around the world, to answer what is by far the most important question facing the country: What can the new government do to get the country back on track after 15 years of stagnation and decline? CDE’s AGENDA 2024: Priorities for South Africa’s new government offers a policy agenda that is substantially different from what we have seen over the past 15 years. It identifies catalytic urgent actions within five areas and our series of ACTION reports (six released with four more to come) have built considerable momentum and readership in important circles of influence.
Ann was a member of the Transition Team, then the Board of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (1994 to 2001). In 2005, she was a Reagan-Fascell Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, Washington DC. From 2008 to 2017 she was a member of the Brenthurst Foundation board. In 2008 and 2009 she was an invited faculty member, World Economic Forum, Davos. In 2013, she was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington DC. In 2016 she was an invited Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre, Italy.
She is the author of The Case for Business in Developing Economies (Penguin 2010), which received favourable reviews in South African media, the Economist, Financial Times and Forbes. It received the 2012 Sir Anthony Fisher Award from the Atlas Research Foundation, Washington DC. She received the University of Johannesburg’s Ellen Kuzwayo Award in 2019 for an ‘outstanding contribution that has had a positive impact on society’.