Measures aimed at ‘removing barriers to economic activity and devolving decision-making to the individual South Africans who have the most to gain or lose from helpful or harmful policies’ are at the heart of a national turnaround strategy crafted by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR).
The IRR Growth Strategy makes the case for inexpensive and easily implementable reforms that could provide ‘a credible foundation for sustainable growth rates of 7% of GDP within a decade’. This would allow South Africa ‘to combat unemployment, poverty and inequality, live up to its great potential, and emerge as a prosperous middle-income economy by the 2030s,’ the IRR says in a statement.
The growth strategy was submitted to last week’s Multi-Party National Convention when it met in Johannesburg to begin fashioning a post-ANC turnaround.
In a webinar yesterday, IRR chief executive Dr John Endres, author of the IRR Growth Strategy document, discussed its contents with IRR projects and publications manager Terence Corrigan.
You can watch the webinar (and access the report itself) here.
This strategy argues for bold action ‘capable of giving citizens a realistic chance of getting ahead through much faster economic growth, increased employment, effective socio-economic empowerment, and a sustainable safety net that helps integrate even the poorest into an innovative and expanding economy’.
The proposals are founded on ‘removing barriers to entrepreneurship, building individual freedom and self-reliance, and reaching right down to the grassroots in expanding prosperity and restoring hope’.
The strategy document sets out four successive steps, ‘all of which can be initiated by a reform government within months and fully implemented over the three-year period from 2024 to 2026’.
Underlying the reform plan is the recognition that what South Africa needs more than
anything else is economic growth. With this objective in mind, it says a reform-minded government must:
- expand capital inflows and foreign direct investment (FDI) into South Africa, so as to start raising the growth rate and increasing fixed capital formation;
- build and maintain essential economic and social infrastructure to stimulate growth and provide a solid foundation for further economic expansion;
- translate increased growth into increased employment; and
- help the disadvantaged climb the economic ladder to increased prosperity, while sustaining current social protection.
The IRR Growth Strategy notes: ‘In essence, they entail removing barriers to economic activity and devolving decision-making to the individual South Africans who have the most to gain or lose from helpful or harmful policies.’
It argues that, ‘(if) implemented, these proposals will give South Africans a realistic chance to get ahead on the basis of greatly increased employment, effective socio-economic empowerment, and a sustainable safety net that helps integrate even the poorest into an innovative and expanding economy’.