South Africa can become a land of milk and honey for all its citizens by 2030, but the proposed road map for getting there published by the National Planning Commission calls for tough choices, mutual sacrifice and strong leadership.
The national development plan is the culmination of 18 months of work by the 26-member commission chaired by Trevor Manuel, Planning Minister in the Presidency.
The plan proposes a development path that tackles all the country’s problems, including unemployment, poverty and inequality, as well as the protection of the environment.
Inherent in such a path are frictions between the various goals, a challenge that the plan shows the commission is alive to.
“The country must write a different story in the years ahead,” the commission said. “In this new story, every citizen is concerned about the wellbeing of all other citizens, and the development of South Africa means the development of each and every one of us who lives here.”
In the new narrative, the energies of all South Africans are focused on reducing poverty as well as expanding a robust, entrepreneurial and innovative economy.
“Over the next two decades and beyond, communities will need the resources and capabilities to become their own engines of development, and government must support this.
“At the core of this plan is a focus on capabilities; the capabilities of people and our country and of creating the opportunities for both,” Manuel wrote in his foreword.
“The capabilities that each person needs to live the life that they desire differ, but must include education and skills, decent accommodation, nutrition, safe communities, social security, transport and job opportunities.”
The capabilities a country needed to enable citizens to thrive included a capable state, leadership from all sectors of society, a pact for mutual sacrifice and trust, Manuel added.
As the commission admits, these goals cannot be achieved simultaneously – and certainly not without some sectors of society making sacrifices. Hence the call for tough choices.
The commission zeroes in on two challenges, which it regards as critical and interrelated. These are that too few South Africans are working and the quality of public education is poor.
On job creation, for example, the commission’s plan calls for 11 million new jobs to be created by 2030.
To achieve this, South Africa must create an environment for sustainable employment and inclusive growth, promote job creation in industries that absorb large pools of labour, increase exports and competitiveness, strengthen government capacity to lead economic development, and mobilise South Africans around a national vision. - Political Bureau