Labour, Development and Governance
LDG members and associates
Publications
Partner Projects
Welcome to Labour, Development & Governance (LDG)
LDG is a cross-disciplinary research unit based in the Faculty of Law at UCT, with a presence in both Commercial Law and the Sociology Department.
LDG conducts research in South Africa, and increasingly in countries in the sub-Saharan African region in the fields of labour, development and governance, and the interfaces between them. As such, LDG is involved in a number of projects, either on its own or in collaboration with others, that examine labour regulation and development in South Africa and in the region. Growing regional integration, and the emergence of a fluid regional labour market, have necessitated this widened scope.
LDG has long roots, going back to the establishment of a Labour Law Unit (LLU) in the Law Faculty in 1987, concerned at the time with the struggle for labour rights in South Africa in the 1980’s and 1990’s. LLU later merged with the Development Law Unit (DLU) in 1992, to form the Institute of Development and Labour Law (IDLL).
Subsequently, discussions in 2019 between IDLL and the Labour and Enterprise Project (LEP), an autonomous research group associated with IDLL (LEPs roots go back to a 1990 research project in the Department of Sociology on the emergent trade union movement), resulted in the establishment of a new entity – LDG - that would incorporate the activities of both the IDLL and LEP.
Over the years LEP has published numerous reports, journal articles and books and has earned a reputation for quality research within a wide network of colleagues and researcher entities both in South Africa and internationally.
LDG's partner projects are highlighted here:
