Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
Jaynisha Patel

Creator

Jaynisha Patel

Jaynisha Patel is a project leader for inclusive economies at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. She is the recent co-author of an Afrobarometer paper on how South Africans perceive the cash grants systems, and holds a master’s in politics, philosophy and economics from the University of Cape Town

File photo by Kola Sulaimon/AFP.

Breaking cycles of violence in Nigeria’s northeast region

Boosting human, social and economic development, and good governance, can help to change volatile communities into peaceful ones

A miner carries a load of ore at Manzou Farm, owned by Grace Mugabe, wife of former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, in Mazowe, Zimbabwe. (JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP via Getty Images)

Zimbabwe’s youth caught between patronage and plunder

It is estimated that gold worth $1.5 billion is smuggled annually out of Zimbabwe but this is only the tip of what has led to chronic poverty

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana.(Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images)

Can harsh fiscal trade-offs still improve agency and social cohesion for South Africans?

This year’s budget will be a balancing act, but the treasury needs to prioritise restoring South Africans economic agency

War zone: Fishers head to shore with their catch on the Mozambican coast off the district of Pemba. Thousands of people have fled from the ongoing violence in Cabo Delgado province, which experiences persistent material deprivation. Photo: Alfredo Zuniga/AFP/Getty Images

Youth key to halting insurgency in Mozambique

Young Mozambicans in the country’s north, who are driven to join Islamic insurgents by poverty, must be included in peace and security efforts

Stability in Kenya hinges on a just, equitable distribution of resources, and a commitment to progress human development for the marginalised.  (Photo by Donwilson Odhiambo/Getty Images)

Pockets of instability in Kenya are underpinned by unequal development

Stability in Kenya hinges on a just, equitable distribution of resources, and a commitment to progress human development for the marginalised

Soldiers patrol in front of a burned truck carrying the inscription “Shabaab Chinja” referring to the jihadist group in Mocimboa da Praia. (Photo by Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP)

Who finances Mozambique’s insurgency?

Informal banking and trade are both a lifeline for local communities and a grey area for terror financing, requiring progressive efforts to develop rather than de-risk

The country’s social fibre is under strain and one cannot help but feel that something will have to give. (David Harrison/M&G)

Intensifying economic insecurity may threaten South Africa’s social cohesion

The country’s social fibre is under strain and one cannot help but feel that something will have to give

Forced labour is a type of human trafficking, defined under the Prevention and Combatting of Trafficking in Persons Act. Other types of human trafficking under this Act include sex trafficking, forced marriages and domestic servitude. (John McCann/M&G)

Rise in forced labour expected amid the Covid-19 economic crisis

Criminals prey on desperate people by offering them false promises of a better life. In fact, they are coercing them into lives of exploitation and misery