Markets on the Margins

In 1987, workers in South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) staged a historic national strike, and 40,000 mineworkers lost their jobs. To assist them, the NUM set up a job creation programme, starting with worker co-operatives before shifting to wider enterprise development strategies. Against the backdrop of South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy, this programme providedsupport in communities hard hit by escalating job losses on the mines - including in neighbouring countries. In this book, Kate Philip, who ran NUM's job creation programme for over a decade, chartsthe often-difficult lessons learned from grappling with the limits and opportunities that such market participation offer to reduce poverty and improve livelihoods. She explores whether and how it might be possible to make markets work better for the poor - and what the notion that markets are social constructs might mean for constructing them differently.

Kate Philip is a Senior Economic Advisor in the Government Technical Advice Centre (GTAC) of South Africa's National Treasury, and, through the International Labour Organisation, she is also supporting the government of Greece inthe roll-out of a public employment programme.