Economy, Technology, and People

South Africa Today
Friday, March 22, 2013 to Sunday, March 24, 2013

South Africa Today

Motivation:
As global citizens, students need to have a working knowledge of other countries, which are important in shaping the corporate, social and political world. As a rising state in the world economy, South Africa’s status in the business and in world affairs is shifting.

Course Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the course, the students will:

  1. Have a general understanding of the corporate, geo-political, cultural and social factors that define the South African economic, cultural and technological landscape at the present time.
  2. Explore one of these factors in depth, through the research paper.

Description:
This short course will explore how various intersections of economy, society, and identity interact in South Africa and in the perceived position of South Africa as an emerging world economy. It will explore questions such as:

  • How do South Africa’s history and diversity reflect in the policies and the economy of South Africa today? In the way South Africans react with the market?
  • What are today’s challenges in attaining equity in quality of life in South Africa? What are some of its greatest needs?
  • What are impediments to South Africa’s economic and business growth?
  • What are the challenges of multinational firms in developing countries and how can those challenges be overcome?
  • What are some of the salient features of the U.S.-South African Relations?
  • How have cultural traditions and modernizations integrated in South Africa? What have been some cultural responses to globalization?
  • What lies ahead? What are the opportunities and challenges in South Africa’s immediate future?

David Hirschmann, Professor

Dr. Hirschmann is a professor in the School of International Service at American University in Washington D.C.. Dr. Hirschmann has written approximately 55 publications, with topics including Reengineering and Performance Measurement in USAID; Development Management/ Bureaucracy/ Administration, and Planning; Women and Development; Women and Political Participation/ Democracy/ Civil Society; Elections Management; Institutional Development; Rural Development; Development Policy; and Southern African Politics. Dr. Hirschmann holds a PhD, MA, LLB, and BA from the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)

Jean B. Nachega, MD, PhD, MPH:

Associate Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Pittsburgh University. His research, teaching, andprofessional activities include planning, design, implementing, and monitoring clinical trials, cohort studies and programs for prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and related opportunistic infections globally. He authored more than 80 publications and some of them in prestigious journals such as Lancet, JAMA, PlosMedicine and Annals of Internal Medicine. He conducted a pivotal study establishing a dose-response linear relationship between adherence to Non-Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors-based HIV Therapy and virologic outcomes. In addition, he was the first to quantify the savings in health care cost per month associated with excellent ART adherence, in a large South African HIV cohort. He serves as the Principal Investigator on several research or training grants funded by NIH, PEPFAR, EDCTP, Wellcome Trust and Private Foundations. He is an ad hoc expert member at World Health Organization, HIV Department, Geneva, within the HIV Treatment Guidelines as well as HIV Drug Resistance Working Groups. He is member of South African Academy of Sciences.

Professor Louis A. Picard

Director of the Ford Institute for Human Security at the University of Pittsburgh. He is also the former Associate Dean (1988-1992) and Acting Dean (1989-1990) of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh and Director of the International Development Division of the Graduate school of Public and International Affairs of the University of Pittsburgh. He served as President of Public Administration Service. (2002-2005). His research and consulting specializations include international development, governance, development management, local government, civil society and human resource development. His primary area of interest is Africa and he has had extensive fieldwork in Southern Africa including three years in South Africa. He has worked in the Anglophone East and West Africa, including the Horn, Francophone West Africa and North Africa. He also has research interests and experience in Central America and the Caribbean, South Asia and in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia.

Dr. Picard has carried out research on regional and district administration in Tanzania, developed the training system for local government in Botswana, and for the last ten years has been working on issues of liberalism, governance and local governance and development management on South Africa. From 1991-1994 Dr. Picard served as a UNDP and World Bank advisor on regional and local government and on public sector capacity building in both Ethiopia and Eritrea. He has worked in more than 46 countries, 38 of which are in Africa and the Middle East. His major academic research for the last several years has been on the political transformation in South Africa. He has also carried out research on U.S. foreign aid, security and diplomacy. He is the author or editor of 11 books more than forty articles and book chapters and numerous reports.

Dr. Beverly Peters

Dr. Peters is a specialist in human security in Africa and has written extensively on economic development, democratization, and HIV/AIDS. She has more than fifteen years experience teaching, conducting research, and managing projects in southern and West Africa. An expert on political and economic development in Zimbabwe, she has provided political analyses to the government of South Africa and the private sector, and is regularly featured in local and international media including the South African Broadcasting Corporation news, New York Times, Voice of America, and Radio France International.  Dr. Peters has developed proposals for and managed democratization and community development programs in South Africa, Darfur, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, among other countries. Dr. Peters holds a PhD Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh and a MA Public and International Affairs, California State University Sacramento. She speaks English, Shona, Spanish.