Over the course of its history, SALDRU has convened several inquiries into the state of the country. The first commenced in the 1980s with the Second Carnegie Conference and in 2012 SALDRU hosted the conference “Towards Carnegie 3: Strategies to overcome poverty and inequality”.
This year SALDRU, with key partners in the Presidency and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), as well as the European Commission through the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalities, convened a new inquiry titled: “South Africa at 30 Years of Democracy”. The conference was held from 2-4 April 2025 at the University of Cape Town.
After an historical election result in 2024, our country now faces the prospect of unprecedented policy change. To recognise the importance of this emerging policy landscape, the conference structure was updated to allow stakeholders to suggest policy dialogues, paper suggestions on key themes, and additional thematic topics of relevance to the Government of National Unity (GNU).
Contributions were invited from all stakeholders and included items such as opinion pieces, research abstracts, posters of research results, research papers, and thought leadership articles.
Please email sa30@uct.ac.za with any questions about the conference.