Applied Development Economics SOAS University of London

Programme Structure

Research Topics:

• This project seeks PhD proposals that interrogate unemployment in post-apartheid South Africa, from either a political economy or micro-economic perspective. South Africa has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the world, and it might have been expected that substantially reducing unemployment would have been a priority of the democratically elected government from 1994. 
• Amidst the emergence of numerous promising initiatives challenging economic orthodoxies in Africa—such as as the student-led Rethinking Economics For Africa, the feminist Nawi Collective and an expert meeting in Dakar aimed at rethinking economic paradigms—the understanding of how economic ideas arise and take root on the continent could be further enriched. Economics, as a discipline that profoundly shapes visions for economic and social development alongside concrete policy approaches, occupies a central role.