South African People and Environments in the Global Economy

A series of five booklets published by groundWork, August 2002

Published to coincide with the World Summit on Sustainable Development which opened in South Africa in August this year, this series of five booklets gives an environmental justice perspective on challenges for sustainable development in South Africa.   The booklets report from "several' fronts of the struggle we call development.   They look at how South Africa has adopted critical aspects of international governance, at whose interests are served, and at the impacts on people and their environments. They indicate that, while another world is possible, it is not being built in South Africa.

These booklets can be downloaded below from this web site in pdf format or may be ordered free of charge from the groundWork office.

• Booklet 1: The invisible fist: Development policy meets the world
  by David Hallowes
  Booklet 1 focuses on South Africa's approach to development in relation to the global order defined by the neo-liberal agenda of the "Washington consensus".
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• Booklet 2: Partners in pollution: Voluntary agreements and corporate greenwash
  by Chris Albertyn and Gill Watkins
  The corporate push for self-regulation is part of the neo-liberal agenda.  Booklet 2 looks at what advances they have made in South Africa.
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• Booklet 3: The cost of living: How selling basic services excludes the poor
  by Mark Butler
  Booklet 3 picks up on the democratic promise to provide people with services, such as clean water and energy, in relation to global injunctions for cost recovery and privitisation.
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• Booklet 4: The Seeds of neo-colonialism: Genetic engineering and farming
  by Elfrieda Pschorn-Strauss and Rachel Wynberg
  Booklet 4 looks at the role of South Africa in the global battle over the introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms.
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• Booklet 5: Ground-zero in the Carbon Economy: People on the petrochemical fence-line
  by Rory O'Connor and David Hallowes
  Booklet 5 touches on climate change, another point of conflict between the Northern powers, so as to relate it to the local impacts of South Africa's oil refineries.
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