SDGs Africa Summit 2021: Poverty and inequality

20 Sep 2021
SDG Summit logo
20 Sep 2021

The International Summit on the SDGs in Africa 2021 was a three-day, online international event, hosted by the University of Cape Town, to bring together African and global university networks and other stakeholders with an interest in sustainable development.

The summit was designed with the distinctive aim of accelerating actionable progress towards the SDGs in Africa. To this end, the talks, panel discussions, workshops and breakout sessions revolved around clear steps for implementation.The key aim of this virtual gathering was to mobilise collaborative efforts that will accelerate African-led activities in support of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union's Agenda 2063. Seven focus areas (thematic tracks) formed a critical component of the Summit.

Haroon Bhorat , DPRU Director, co-hosted Thematic track 7: Poverty and inequality Poverty, inequality and growth in Africa after 2021: How can we do better?, with Murray Leibbrandt, Professor of Economics and the Director of the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU), and Director of the African Centre of Excellence for Inequalities Research (ACEIR) at UCT.

A “Growth, Poverty & Inequality: The Challenge in Africa” virtual pre-workshop was held on 31 August 2021, where participants considered the outlook for growth, poverty and inequality on the continent, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the GPI nexus. The workshop also focused on reassessing deindustrialisation in Africa, reflecting on manufacturing’s renaissance, and the role of manufacturing in structural change in Sub-Saharan Africa. These are crucial issues within the broader discussion of employment, growth, poverty and inequality in Africa going forward. A key outcome of that event was the creation of an ‘agenda for action’ that would inform the follow-up discussions and debates to be workshopped at the Summit.

During the Summit, the breakout sessions on seven thematic tracks included two workshops:

Access the slide presentations from the workshops here.

Further resources include the TT7 Workshops Summary, and the Draft Positioning Paper, and Prof Haroon Bhorat's TT7 Wrap-Up & Feedback presentation to the Summit attendees on Day 3, here.

Read more about the Summit: http://www.sdgsafricasummit.uct.ac.za/