This review explores how the state in fact - and in stated objectives - has sought to provide universal access to basic education. It also explores how basic education is defined.

Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII) with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) hosted a high level seminar on 6 July 2012 to debate how the ANC policy conference might shape the immediate and longer term interests for South Africa's unemployed, working poor, working middle class, business elite and political elite respectively around the following three issues: 1) access to basic services and the notion of the 'Developmental State'; 2) economic transformation a nd the ANC's version of a 'mixed economy'; 3) incomes: employment and access to key assets.

Policy brief on transformation 2013.

This is an ambitious document, in that it seeks to place a theoretical approach to understanding the issues involving the
conceptualisation, definition and measurement of poverty in an accessible manner, as well as to reflect more technical concerns regarding the nature and quality of data that exists which any poverty measure would have to draw on in a manner that does not alienate “lay people”. We have also tried to provide a description of historical attempts to measure poverty in South Africa to ensure that current discussions do not take place in an a contextual manner.

With the endorsement by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), which is constitutionally obliged to report annually on the defence and advancement of the rights in the Constitution, SPII has developed a methodology based on a combination of policy and budget analysis and statistical indicators to monitor and evaluate the progressive realisation of rights.