South Africa at high risk of becoming a “demoralised land of disorder and decay” by 2030
Submitted by: Khutso Makofane
A change in the national trajectory seems elusive but can be achieved through effective social compacts.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – 10 August 2022 – The #IndlulamithiDay2022 Barometer results show South Africa moving dangerously deeper into Indlulamithi’s Gwara Gwara scenario, which imagines the country as a “demoralised land of disorder and decay” by 2030.
The annual Barometer, whose latest readings were unveiled on 27 July, shows the country trending 64% towards the worst-case scenario as indicated by a range of measures. This is up from 59% in 2021 and 46% in 2019.
In the Gwara Gwara scenario, levels of social cohesion are low, average economic growth drops below 2%, official unemployment remains persistently above 25%, and approximately one third of the population remains in poverty.
“For South Africans, everyday life has been in Gwara Gwara for years now. Gwara Gwara is most prevalent in our measure of “social inequality”, one of the key driving forces of the Indlulamithi Scenarios. This calls for urgent action to alter course by fixing the everyday lives and experiences of citizens,” commented Dr Tara Polzer Ngwato, lead researcher for the Indlulamithi Barometer.
In fact, many of the indicators informing this year’s Barometer reading have declined beyond the Gwara Gwara scenario thresholds. As a result, for the first time Indlulamithi has contemplated a so-called Gwara Gwara Plus (GG+) future – a scenario more dire than Gwara Gwara. More than a third of the indicators lie in GG+, with South Africa sitting 26% in Gwara Gwara and 36% in GG+.
Reasons for the further decline into Gwara Gwara include decreases in hope in the country’s economic trajectory, stability in major political parties, reliability of power supply, and an extreme decrease in government entities audited having ‘good’ financial status.
Also contributing to growing levels of resentment and resistance are rising youth unemployment, worsening inequality, gender-based violence, alarming levels of crime, a worsening debt crisis, growing inflation, floods, increased levels of household food insecurity, a weakened capacity of state institutions, and corruption.
“We’re not just doing slightly worse than our comparative countries. We’re doing much, much worse – half as well as we should be compared to countries with similar kinds of middle-income status,” added Dr Polzer Ngwato.
The Indlulamithi Barometer was designed in 2019 as an evidence-based tool to create a shared understanding of the future among all South Africans. It hopes to create a sense urgency and galvanise collective action toward the goal of social cohesion.
The social compact seminar
#IndlulamithiDay2022 also focused on how to improve this 2030 outlook and move from Gwara Gwara into the Nayi le Walk future – Indlulamithi’s best-case scenario.
The seminar asked three key questions to provide thought leadership for social compacting:
- What is the state and future of South Africa social compact(s)?
- What are the options, or impediments and processes for compacting?
- What framework or approach for compacting can work for South Africa, with who doing what, and when?
The discussions emphasised that social compacts are not an answer or solution in and of themselves to the crises we face. Rather, they are a means to an end – a process that promises to help South Africans work together peacefully on defining, determining, and implementing solutions to the malaise. A social compacting approach asks: How can we employ collaboration rather than imposition, to make progress on our complex challenges?
The Indlulamithi Scenarios Trust believes the answer to reaching Nayi Le Walk is in enabling social compacts that are actionable, measurable and hold all partners accountable. The process of social compacting requires broader representation, with participatory processes for those that are impacted but currently outside formal compacting mechanisms such as Nedlac. And finally, that before social compacts in South Africa can be effective, increased trust must be fostered between the social partners. People need to see that social compacts can deliver, which means less talk and cutting of ribbons, and more action – to build confidence.
“We are sliding dangerously close to the edge of uncertainty, and we must act decisively. We know that the Nayi le Walk vision of a South Africa – marked by growing social cohesion, economic expansion, and a renewed sense of constitutionalism – is elusive, but not impossible. We must pursue it together,” said Professor Somadoda Fikeni, Indlulamithi project lead.
“Social compacts provide a vehicle for collaborative action, a way to mediate the competing interests that divide us and pull South Africa out of stagnation and decay, into an environment conducive to investment, job-creation and peaceful co-exitance”, said Dr. Marius Oosthuizen of the Centre for Leadership and Dialogue at GIBS.
Contributing to the discussion on social compacts were Lisa Seftel (Executive Director of Nedlac), Lawrence Matemba (Acting Head of the Policy and Research Services Branch in The Presidency), Matthew Parks (Deputy Parliamentary Coordinator, COSATU), Martin Kingston (CEO of Rothschild & Co), Adam Kahane (Director of Reos Partners), Michelle Muschett (Faculty Member of the School of Government of ADEN University), Andrew Boraine (EDP) and Neeshan Balton (Ahmed Kathrada Foundation).
To watch the replay of #IndlulamithiDay2022, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww1Kw2FhdGg&t=502s
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About The Indlulamithi Trust
The Indlulamithi Scenarios Trust provides tools – in the form of scenarios, research, an annual barometer, and economic modelling – to assist South Africans in imagining alternative futures more than a decade from today. The scenarios aim to focus both leaders and people from all walks of life on the key questions of: What would a socially cohesive South Africa look like? And to what degree is this attainable by 2030?
Since 2018, Indlulamithi’s tools have been used as a key planning tool by various organisations, influencing the Social Compacting Summit, the Institute of Risk Management South Africa Risk Report 2019, and the Growing Gauteng Together 2030 Report by the Gauteng Provincial Government.
The project is led by Dr Somadoda Fikeni and a diverse group of partners and stakeholders across society, including the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (MISTRA), Applied Development Research Services (ADRS), SSA and the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS).
