The South African task for the next decade is to grow the economy to create more jobs, reduce poverty and share wealth more broadly across all race and income groups in a way that is politically and socially sustainable.
The Institute for Justice & Reconciliation's (IJR ) Transformation Audit 2005: Conflict & Governance aims to provide scorecards on SA's progress towards achieving this goal.
The IJR has been warning for some time that unless the country's poor begin to feel the economy has something in it for them, national reconciliation is not likely to take place. This year, especially, expressions of social discontent have been escalating.
"The astonishing achievement of macroeconomic stability is now taken for granted," says IJR executive director Charles Villa-Vicencio in his preface to the report.
"Real gains in service delivery and the rapidly rising roll-out of grants only whet the appetite of the poor. The recent turmoil in local government demonstrates growing public impatience about delivery, especially of housing, and perceived corruption.
"The education system so far has failed to provide most learners and graduates with marketable skills, and even basic reading and reckoning."
The Institute's 2005 Transformation Audit focuses on conflict and governance, providing a robust diagnosis of central problems and policies. Its focus is on both economic justice and reconciliation.
The audit notes that a new generation of challenges to transformation is on its way. While elements within the governing alliance are arguing that the interests of the poor and of workers are at odds with those of the ruling elite, the formal economy is struggling to come to grips with transformation and empowerment processes.
Transformation will occur only if the economy can grow in an inclusive manner, while funding productive redistribution, concludes IJR political analyst Sue Brown in the introduction.
The roadblock, she says, is poverty. And with more than 50% of the population trapped in poverty, growth is forever less than what it could be.
Poverty is perpetuated by nonfunctioning government institutions and high unemployment, which in turn is perpetuated by skewed growth. SA's economic growth is in turn constrained by the skills mismatch bequeathed by inadequate education and skills provision, and by inadequate investment. These interconnections explain the structure of the report.
The report seeks to draw a bigger picture that factors in the relationships between these sectoral issues as well as with other dilemmas such as weak institutions and poor governance and counterproductive regulation.
"Scarcity of resources promotes conflict, and those concerned with reconciliation can testify that when interests [are at odds] in SA, factions formulate their interests in racial terms," says Brown. "Behind these contentions, we expect class inequality to grow within all population groups and, in the course of the past year, the increasingly explicit challenge from labour, social movements and the ruling party's rank and file to beneficiaries of black economic empowerment [BEE] and enrichment."
Despite these challenges, Brown feels it is important to remember that SA's policies, principles and benefits are often exemplary and far ahead of those of the rest of the continent.
