I’m speaking at the Carnegie3 Conference today (Strategies to Overcome Poverty and Inequality: “Towards Carnegie Three”). www.carnegie3.org.za

“The University of Cape Town, with the support of the National Planning Commission, is co-ordinating a national conference to be held in the first week of September 2012, in order to stimulate deeper thinking about strategies to overcome poverty and inequality in South Africa. This is seen as the first stage of the third Carnegie inquiry in this country.”

We had a great opening session last night setting the scene with Francis Wilson, Max Price, Mamphela Ramphela, Kate O’Regan and Trevor Manuel all setting the scene with the scope of the problem, the role of the conference and some provocations. 

In the middle they showed a series of talking heads from Tembisa. For me what was so interesting was that in both cases where people articulated their poverty it was in the language of food. I wonder if other people, not in the food realm, would have seen this.

The conference is meant to start an ongoing discussion on key issues. I’m a little concerned that this conference has ended up happening at the same time as the World Urban Forum in Naples. It means that most of our big urban thinkers are not attending and there are many more rural papers than urban ones. This may unintentionally play into the existing perception that the “real” problems of poverty are in the rural areas alone.