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28 January 2021 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath | Photo Sonia Small
Prof Phillippe Burger.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the entire world, claiming more than two million lives and sparing no region. The world is confronted with urgent unsolved challenges, with the poor and vulnerable populations, low-skilled workers, and refugees most affected. 

These challenges will be addressed by the Lancet COVID-19 Commission and its various task forces, one of which is the Fiscal Policy and Financial Markets task force. Prof Philippe Burger, Professor of Economics and Pro-Vice-Chancellor: Poverty, Inequality and Economic Development at the University of the Free State, serves as a member of the commission’s Fiscal Policy and Financial Markets task force. The eleven members of the task force include two Nobel prize laureates in economics, as well as academics and public-policy specialists from across the world, under the co-chairpersonship of Dr Vitor Gaspar (Director of the Department of Fiscal Affairs at the IMF) and Prof Felipe Larraín (Professor of Economics, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and former Minister of Finance of Chile).

The commission is an interdisciplinary initiative across the health sciences, business, finance, and public policy, and was created to help speed up global, equitable, and lasting solutions to the pandemic. The work of the commission is divided into 12 task forces, each composed of members from diverse disciplinary interests, geographies, and identities. These task forces provide support in areas ranging from vaccine development to humanitarian relief strategies, to safe workplaces, to global economic recovery. 

Key aims of the commission is to speed up awareness and the worldwide adoption of strategies to suppress transmission, as well as to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines and key technologies are equitably accessible across the world.

The Fiscal Policy and Financial Markets task force will consider fiscal and financial issues related to the pandemic affecting advanced, emerging market, and developing economies. Based on evidence and best practices, the task force will provide recommendations on managing the effects of the pandemic and will also manage the transition to a resilient, smart, inclusive, and green growth path. Issues related to fiscal sustainability as well as debt relief in poor countries are on the task team’s agenda.

Many multilateral institutions such as the WHO, the IMF, the World Bank, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN, the UN World Food Programme, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and others face profound challenges in undertaking their crucial missions to coordinate the global response to the pandemic. The Lancet COVID-19 Commission also aims to make recommendations to strengthen the efficacy of these critical institutions. Moreover, the commission reaches out to regional groupings, including the African Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), and others, to support the efforts of these bodies in fighting the pandemic. 

The Lancet COVID-19 Commission and its task teams include leaders in health science and healthcare delivery, business, politics, and finance from across the world. They volunteer to serve in their individual capacities – not as formal representatives of their home institutions – and will work together towards a shared and comprehensive outlook on how to stop the pandemic and how best to promote an equitable and sustainable recovery. 

News Archive

UFS awarded five South African Research Chairs
2016-09-30

Description: South African Research Chairs Tags: South African Research Chairs

From left to right, Prof Maryke Labuschagne,
Prof Corli Witthuhn (Vice-Rector: Research),
Prof Hendrik Swart and Prof Felicity Burt.

The UFS was awarded five SARChI (South African Research Chairs Initiative) research chairs, the main goal of which is to promote research excellence. In addition, there has been an increase in the rating of the University’s researchers as the result of raised academic standards over the past few years, in line with the UFS’s Academic Project. As of 2016 the UFS has 127 NRF-rated researchers.

The following research chairs have been awarded to the UFS since 2013:

Prof Hendrik Swart from the Department of Physics is the research chair of Solid State Luminescent and Advanced Materials (2013-2017). Prof Swart’s research may assist in reducing vulnerability and contributing to poverty alleviation by providing affordable lighting for people in rural areas through fabricating phosphors and the development of nanophosphors.

Prof Maryke Labuschagne from the Department of Plant Sciences is the research chair of Disease Resistance and Quality in Field Crops (2016-2020). Prof Labuschagne believes that food security is one of the key factors for stability and prosperity on the continent. Her research and that of her students focuses on the genetic improvement of food security crops in Africa, including such staples as maize and cassava.

Research Chairs have been designed, to attract
and retain excellence in research and innovation
at South African universities.

Prof Melanie Walker, from the Department of Higher Education and Human Development, was awarded the research chair from 2013 to 2017. Prof Walker’s research interrogates the role of higher education in order to advance human development and justice in education and society, especially in relation to severe inequalities and poverty. Significantly, it asks what kind of societies we want, what is important in a democratic society, and thus, what kind of higher education is valuable, relevant and desirable.

Prof Felicity Burt from the Department of Medical Microbiology was recently awarded the research chair from 2016 to 2020, to investigate medically significant vector-borne and zoonotic viruses currently; to define associations between these viruses and specific disease manifestations that have previously not been described in our region, to increase awareness of these pathogens; to further our understanding of host immune responses, which should facilitate development of novel treatments or vaccines and drug discovery.

The Humanities without Borders: Trauma, History and Memory research chair was awarded from 2016 to 2020. The Institute for Social Justice and Reconciliation will use this research chair to investigate historical trauma within two African contexts – those of South Africa and Rwanda. The research hopes to bring insight into the role that memory plays in the formation of the experience of trauma, and to bring about healing of the trauma.

Research Chairs have been designed by the Department of Science and Technology, together with the National Research Foundation, to attract and retain excellence in research and innovation at South African public universities.

 

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