OVERVIEW
The Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) advises President Cyril Ramaphosa with the aim of providing sound advice on economic policy in order to spur sustained, inclusive economic growth, investment and job creation for South Africa.
The Council is a non-statutory and independent body chaired by the President and brings together prominent local and international economists and technical experts drawn from academia, the private sector, labour, community, think tanks and other constituencies.
The Council constitutes expertise in international economics; macroeconomics (including fiscal policy and monetary economics); labour economics; economics of education and the economics of poverty and inequality and urban development. Other areas of insights entail microeconomics with a focus on network industries, regulation and competition, trade, land and agriculture policy energy and climate change.
The Council serves as a forum for in-depth and structured discussions on emerging global and domestic developments, economic and development policies, and to facilitate socialisation and diligent execution thereof.
This operating model is intended to enhance the work being undertaken to build a capable state, as demanded by the National Development Plan. The Council will also be instrumental in building a knowledge base of policy and implementation lessons, best practices and field-tested success stories.
Book to be Released in Honour of Professor Benno Ndulu
Driving Digital Transformation: Lessons from Seven Developing Countries will be released next month in honour of the late Professor Benno Ndulu. The book co-authored by Elizabeth Stuart, Stefan Dercon, and Peter Knaack gives a ringside seat on seven developing countries' tumultuous early steps on the path to a reform of the economy and the government using technology.
In one country, the prime minister pushes for the liberalization of digital finance as a central pillar of the country's national strategy, while the central bank almost makes it a criminal offence. In another, the digital minister tries to scupper the very process to support digital transformation that the president has asked them to co-lead. This book gives a ringside seat on seven developing countries' tumultuous early steps on the path to a reform of the economy and the government using technology.
Written by a group of academics and practitioners from Oxford at the heart of the process, but foregrounding the voices of the policymakers and participants, this book documents and critically assesses efforts to assist a set of governments to kick-start digital transformation. In doing so, it offers lessons for policymakers in other countries who want to pursue similar efforts. Beyond that, however, it is also an exposition of the process of policymaking more generally in the 2020s, and offers broader insight into how outsiders can play a sensible role in other reform processes in developing and emerging countries.
The book will be published in March 2023 and is currently available for pre-order: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/driving-digital-transformation-9780192872845?cc=za&lang=en&#