WILLIAMS IN AFRICA’S FLAGSHIP CAPE TOWN PROGRAM
Harnessing Globalization’s Potential: South African Public Policy in Action
The Williams in Africa Review Committee, having assessed Williams’ past
involvement in South Africa and the detailed investigation of our
fact-finding team, proposes a
model for the College’s growing interest in global studies that takes
advantage of the unique opportunities Cape Town and the Williams faculty
offer. The proposal invites our students (and recent graduates) to
participate in an academic program of experiential learning that will both
teach them about South African politics, society and development as well as
cultivate their research skills for studying it in the field, around the
central issues of social justice. The program’s unique feature will be a
unifying seminar on contemporary social and political issues in South Africa
that will bring Williams students together with South African
Parliamentarians in a collaborative effort with the
Economic Policy Research
Institute (EPRI), which has a fifteen year history working with Williams on
South African capacity building. In addition, Williams
students will have the opportunity to take courses at
the University of Cape Town
as well as those offered by EPRI to Members of the National Parliament and
government officials from around the world. Williams
students will combine this course work with
research-oriented fieldwork and personal experience of a
society that is embedded in the global economy under
challenging circumstances. They, therefore, will
encounter and learn about globalization from a
perspective that is unfamiliar to most of our students –
one where opportunities for a better future struggle
with realities of dramatically uneven levels of
development and prosperity. One of the most unequal
societies in the world, South Africa is a microcosm of
the new global village, with all its opportunities and
risks.
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Fortunately, Williams has unusual access to Cape Town. We build on
relationships with EPRI, IDASA, the Mothers-to-Mothers program (run by
Williams alumnus Dr. Mitch Besser ‘76), South African universities and
researchers, and twenty-five alumni of the Center for Development Economics,
and we can learn from the experience of a previous version of this program.
A surprising number of current – and past – faculty members have taught or
conducted research in South Africa, and our students have demonstrated a
genuine interest in studying there. We recognize the difficulty and risk of
establishing a new program in a faraway part of the world, but we reason
that our connections and experience in South Africa ensure a high likelihood
of success. In other words, we think the project not only is worth doing,
but that we can do it exceptionally well.
The choice of Cape Town transcends the opportunity of access. Cape Town is
the seat of South Africa’s Parliament, which has legislated a policy
framework that over the past fifteen years has rapidly integrated a
previously isolated country into the global community, grappling with key
issues of social justice in addressing the legacy of apartheid. The
government has faced severe challenges—and has documented remarkable
successes as well as bitter failures—and many other outcomes across that
spectrum. In short, the country’s ongoing struggle represents a rich
opportunity for students to not only learn side by side with national
legislators but also to work actively on anti-poverty initiatives and
economic policy development. In particular, the program for experiential
learning presents opportunities to study how civil society engages with
government stakeholders in forming a democratic culture. The associated
research institutes and non-governmental organizations offer internships
that demonstrate how non-state actors play a critical role in supporting and
achieving key public objectives, particularly in the pursuit of social
justice.
Williams has been part of this process ever since the first democratic
elections in 1994, when the incumbent government invited Williams faculty to
teach incoming government policy-makers about development policy. From this
process emerged the Economic Policy Research Institute (EPRI), which
includes two Williams alumni and one Williams faculty member on the
organization’s Board of Directors. EPRI runs a capacity building program for
the South African Parliament which involves undergraduate and graduate
teaching in economics and public policy. Five Williams faculty members and
the CDE’s director have taught in this program (along with a diverse group
of international academics, including Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz). Over
fifty Williams students have worked at EPRI as interns since 1994—most of
them funded by the College, including the Wilmers internship fund.
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