A high-level South African delegation comprising politicians, police officers and experts from security think tanks recently visited Bavaria to learn about German violence prevention strategies, the involvement of civil society in community safety initiatives and service-oriented policing. The delegation was led by Daniel Plato, the Minister for Community Safety in the Western Cape – a partner province of Bavaria.

Together with several partner organisations, the Civics Academy project of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in South Africa recently organised the first pilot workshop “Youth Making Local Government Work”. The two-day event was held at Sibelius High School Wynberg in Retreat in the Western Cape.

This was the theme of a Roundtable Discussion we held last week together with the Nelson Mandela Foundation, one of our partner organisations in South Africa. Our speakers on the panel were Panyaza Lesufi, the popular MEC (Minister) for Education in Gauteng, Trudi Makhaya, renowned Economist and Business Day Analyst and Dr. Jakkie Cilliers, Head of the African Futures and Innovation Project at the Institute for Security Studies.

South Africa has a new President - former Anti-Apartheid activist, trade union leader, chief negotiator during the transition to democracy in the early 1990s, successful businessman and new ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa was sworn in last Thursday after Jacob Zuma had resigned reluctantly and under pressure the previous night. A day later, President Cyril Ramaphosa gave his first State of the Nation Address in Parliament in Cape Town - a speech that was widely praised and celebrated by citizens, and followed by standing ovations even from the opposition party MPs.

The spokespersons on development policy from different parties in the Bavarian parliament and representatives from the State Chancellery Bavaria visited our new office in Cape Town this week.