| Presenters : |
Catherine Cross, chief research specialist, Urban, Rural and Economic Development research programme, HSRC |
HSRC research for the Gauteng Inter-sectoral Development Unit research focuses on pockets of severe poverty inside the Johannesburg metro. It asks where these poverty pockets come from, and finds that not all of the city's worst poverty is found in informal settlements, or imported into the city from the rural sector through rural to urban migration. Results raise some serious questions about sustainability of the current housing policy, and about the role of social grants in relation to housing. Catherine Cross has extensive experience in different fields of rural and urban research, including poverty studies and development, land tenure, gender, urbanisation and migration, the informal sector and small business, local institutions, social capital, household economy and household AIDS impact. She also has also done research into microfinance and credit, land reform and small farmer development. She is experienced with both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. In 2000, she was the lead sub-consultant for a national project on South African internal migration for the South African Presidency. Ms Cross has also designed and carried out large-scale research around infrastructure and migration for the Development Bank of Southern Africa, reviewed land tenure in South Africa for the World Bank, and consulted on issues of land reform in South Africa. In the area of microfinance, she has worked both for the US Agency for International Development and for the German Cooperative Union. She is currently involved with the African Migration Alliance, and Africa-wide research network, and is editor of forthcoming books on African international migration and on the area case studies of the Ten Year Review. |
