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South Africa

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Population: 49,052,489 (July 2009 est.)

Government: republic; Chief of State and Head of Government: President Jacob Zuma (since May 9, 2009)

Economic Overview

Department of Africana Studies

Dennis Brutus

Professor Emeritus,
Department of Africana Studies,
School of Arts and Sciences
office: 412-648-7556
dubmay@vms.cis.pitt.edu

For assistance in reaching this faculty member, contact
Sharon Blake
office: 412-624-4364
cell: 412-277-6926
blake@pitt.edu

Areas of Expertise

African literature, African politics, racism, South African politics, South African literature

Background

Brutus has served as president of the Jubilee 2000 Africa campaign. He has won the Outstanding Teacher Award from the Institute for Policy studies. Brutus has served on the editorial boards for such publications as Africa Today, Toward Freedom Journal, Transition, and The International Jazz Archives Journal. He is the author of 12 books of poetry, including his latest, Still the Sirens (Pennywhistle Press, 1993).

Department of Economics

Cassing

James H. Cassing

Professor,
Department of Economics,
School of Arts and Sciences
office: 412-648-8746
jcassing@pitt.edu
Faculty Bio
Web site

For assistance in reaching this faculty member, contact
Sharon Blake
office: 412-624-4364
cell: 412-277-6926
blake@pitt.edu

Areas of Expertise

International trade theory and policy, trade theory, economics of deregulation and policy reform

Background

Cassing has expertise in international trade theory and policy as well as international finance and development. He has advised governments on policy reform packages in Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, and South Africa. He is the author of Capital, Technology, and Labor in the New Global Economy (Aei Pr, 1989) and a contributing author for Trade Disputes and the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the WTO: An Interdisciplinary Assessment (Cambridge University Press, 2009). Cassing also serves on the editorial board of The Journal of International Trade and Economic Development.

School of Education

Weidman

John C. Weidman

Professor of education and sociology
Chair, Department of Administrative and Policy Studies
School of Education
office: 412-648-1772
cell: 412-680-1684
weidman@pitt.edu
Faculty bio

For assistance in reaching this Pitt faculty member, contact Patricia Lomando White
office: 412-624-9101
cell: 412-215-9932
laer@pitt.edu

Areas of expertise

Comparative higher-education reform; postsecondary education and development; higher- education policy; quality assurance and accreditation in higher education

Weidman was educated at Princeton University and the University of Chicago. He has written extensively on higher-education reform in countries undergoing the transition from command to market economies. He has worked at the University of the North (now University of Limpopo) and the University of Durban-Westville (now merged into the University of Natal) as an institutional strategic planning expert on two Tertiary Education Linkages Projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Graduate School of Public and International Affairs

Louis A. Picard

Professor of International Development
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
office: 412-648-7659
cell: 412-260-9709
picard@pitt.edu
Faculty Bio
Web site

For assistance in reaching the faculty member, contact
Amanda Leff
office: 412-624-4238
cell: 412-337-3350
aleff@pitt.edu

Areas of Expertise

Development management and governance; political development; local-level politics; manpower planning; politics of rural development; Eastern, Southern, and West Africa; Horn of Africa; Latin America and Caribbean

Background

Picard has done consulting work for the United Nations Development Programme, World Bank, the governments of Botswana and South Africa, and the Ford Foundation. His publications include seven books and more than 40 articles on international development, including “Public Administration in South Africa: Provincial Capacity, Institutional Development, and the Civil Service” in Public Administration in South Africa (Westview Press, 1999) and “Affirmative Action in South Africa: The Transition to a Non-racial Public Service” in Public Administration: Concepts, Theory and Practice (Southern Publishers, 1995).