NIEP was a policy analysis and research institute that succeeded the Macroeconomic Research Group (MERG) which operated in 1991-1993. MERG assisted the African national Congress Alliance to formulate economic policies in the run up to the first democratic elections. It was responsible for the design of the South African macro-economic framework called the Making democracy Work. NIEP then the successor played major role in the articulation of the Reconstruction and Development Programme. It quantified the programme and made submissions which formed the basis of a government white paper on the programme. The institute worked closely with the Departments of Finance, Labour, Trade and Industry, and the Office of the Deputy President among other agencies.
The main aim of the project was to contribute to the empowerment of blacks in South Africa by improving the level and quality of their participation in the design and management of development policies and programmes. Immediate objectives included, improving the quality of post graduate economics education in the historically disadvantaged universities (HDU’s) in the area of teaching research so that blacks could have access to a reasonably comparable quality of economics education in the country; (ii) contributing to the strengthening of national capacity for the articulation of development policies and programmes, rigorous analysis of such policies and programmes and the management of the development process especially key economic departments, parliamentaries and their committees on economic policy and the leadership of the trade unions; and (iii) strengthening the operational capacity of NIEP to conduct independent research and policy analysis in order to stimulate debate on South Africa’s development strategy and policies including providing a local institutional capacity for the implementation of the HDU and national capacity building programme.
