Over the past decade, South Africa has struggled to expand its economy, growing by only 0.7 percent per year, which is four times slower than other middle-income countries. As a result, real GDP per capita is now around the same level as it was in 2007.
The new World Bank report - Driving Inclusive Growth in South Africa: Quick Wins with Competitive Markets and Efficient Institutions - offers a positive message for South Africa. The report highlights the current economic challenges and opportunities for transformation.
Expert Insights and Recommendations
The menu of policy actions proposed in the report reflects inputs from a group of international experts led by Nobel laureate in Economic Sciences Michael Spence, and several representatives of South Africa’s private sector, government, academia, and civil society. One key underlying recommendation is that South Africa urgently needs more competitive markets and efficient institutions - not necessarily more money and regulations.
For each priority, a subset of quick wins is selected for their technical feasibility, minimal political constraints, potential for significant impact, and timely implementation. These include coordinating and reducing the fragmentation of social grants and labor programs, scaling up the use of e-procurement across the government, opening power transmission and transport logistics to private operators, making the financing of the passengers’ public transportation agency conditional on results, replacing the complex system of investment incentives and regulations with simple and predictable rules, and allowing the use of mobile phones to transfer money and pay bills without needing a bank account.
Read the World Bank report - Driving Inclusive Growth in South Africa: Quick Wins with Competitive Markets and Efficient Institutions here:
https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/southafrica/publication/driving-inclusive-growth-in-south-africa-quick-wins-with-competitive-markets-and-efficient-institutions
