Editorial Board
South Africa Needs a New Direction
Unless something changes, it's on the fast track to an economic disaster.
"Radical economic transformation" won't help.
Photographer: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images
The International Monetary Fund just pointed out that “South Africa’s vulnerabilities have become more pronounced.” That’s one way of putting it. A potentially prosperous and dynamic economy is on the fast track to ruin. Altering its course will take real political reform.
Unemployment has risen five percentage points since 2008, to a hope-crushing 28 percent. The country’s population is expanding faster than its economy, which lately has grown at less than half the rate of sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. And its inequality is among the highest in the world.