GCRO profiled ISIbalo CRUISE Urban & Regional Conference

The 3rd ISIbalo Centre for Regional and Urban Innovation & Statistical Exploration (CRUISE) Conference took place at the Stellenbosch University’s Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) from 3-5 July 2017. The conference brought together researchers from academia, the private and public sectors, and non-governmental organizations. Amongst others, the event was addressed by the Minister in the Presidency: Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, the honourable Jeff Radebe, StatsSA’s Statistician-General Dr Pali Lehohla, Professor E. Cloete, Stellenbosch University’s Vice rector in charge of Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies, and the Director of CRUISE Prof Manie Geyer. The keynote speech (Regional Science: history and the future) was delivered by Emeritus Professor Peter Nijkamp of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. During the conference, progress was made towards establishing the African Chapter of the Regional Science Association International.

Dr Koech Cheruiyot and Samy Katumba represented GCRO at the 2017 conference, which was themed around urban and regional development and associated quantitative analysis. Dr Cheruiyot presented on understanding dissatisfaction with government performance in the Gauteng City-Region using geographical weighted regression analysis (based on GCRO’s Quality of Life (QoL) IV survey) that allow for spatial relationships across the city-region. He also chaired a session themed; “Informality” on the third day of the conference. Samy Katumba presented on techniques of identifying spatial change in multidimensional poverty (MPI) in Gauteng, using the QoL III and IV survey data. Samy Katumba’s presentation was selected for inclusion in the second edition of the 3rd ISIbalo CRUISE Newsletter on the second day of the conference.