Foreword We are living at a political turning point whose consequences reach far beyond any single country. The last elections in the United States, and the popular endorsement of an agenda rooted in right-wing religious conservatism, marked more than a routine change in leadership. It signalled a deeper rupture in how power, belonging, and vulnerability are understood. A political vision once considered fringe has moved decisively into the centre of global influence. What is unfolding is not merely a US domestic shift, but a global one that is reshaping norms, institutions, and the language through which injustice is and isn’t recognised and named. This moment matters because it consolidates trends that have been steadily gaining ground: the return of authoritarian and colonial power logics, the erosion of the liberal world order, the selective application of international law, and the growing contestation of democratic norms. When powerful states model selective legality, disdain for multilateralism, and contempt for equality, they signal that an erosion or denial of democracy carries few consequences. Kealeboga Mase Ramaru, Layla Al-Zubaidi, Paula Assubuji
Riding the G20 Rollercoaster: Why African Civil Society Showed Up for Climate Opinion This year’s G20 process has felt like a rollercoaster: exhilarating highs, exhausted lows, and constant questions looping in our heads: Is this process meaningful? Can we influence it? Will the United States derail everything? In this piece, Elin, the International Climate Politics Hub G20 Coordinator, shares her own reflections on the challenges and possibilities of engaging the G20 from a civil society perspective, particularly on issues of climate, energy, and food justice. Elin Lorimer
Wrestling with A Pig: South Africa, the US, and the G20 Presidency This article was written by Professor Adekeye Adebajo, part of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Southern Africa offices G20 engagement process and efforts. It reviews the first eleven months of South Africa’s presidency of the G20 (November 2024–November 2025).
Household Affordability Index The Household Affordability Index is produced by the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group, a Civil Society initiative that focuses on issues of economic justice, the low-wage regime and the increasing household affordability and food price crisis, with its attendant nutritional deficiencies, health and developmental consequences, and the lack of imaginative policy and systemic responses to deal with this crisis. The Household Food Basket has been designed together with women living on low incomes in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Mtubatuba (in Northern KwaZulu-Natal), and Springbok (in the Northern Cape). It includes the foods and the volumes of these foods which women living in a family of seven members (an average low-income household size) tell us they typically try and secure each month. Food prices are tracked directly by women data collectors off the shelves of 47 supermarkets and 32 butcheries. The selection of supermarkets and food brands is dynamic and subjective. Women are smart and savvy shoppers and shop around for bargains. This specific methodology provides an accurate cost of a monthly household food basket, as purchased by women living on low incomes.
April 2024 Household Affordability Index and Key Data The Child Support Grant is such an important intervention. It is well targeted and well used. If increased it has major potential for universal improvements in equity, economic growth, and employment.
My Reflections on Freedom: The Life of the Indigenous and Marginalised on Freedom Day Article An insight into Freedom Day for dispossessed indigenous people fighting giants to preserve sacred land and water. How can you redevelop sacred land by infilling parts of a river with concrete bulk? Nadine Dirks
Our Freedoms Have Multiple Truths Article Freedom is not absolute in South Africa and never will be. In fact, the notion of absolute freedom, while it sounds good to say, is an absurd fallacy. Ling Sheperd
Life Esidimeni: My Reflections on Freedom Article The case of Life Esidimeni is one of the most significant violations of health and human rights in post-apartheid South Africa. Christine Nxumalo
January 2022 Household Affordability Index and Key Data The average cost of the Household Food Basket increased by R349,82 (8,6%), from R4 051,20 in January 2021 to R4 401,02 in January 2022.
