RESEP’s Servaas van der Berg and Ronelle Burger recently contributed to a Bureau for Economic Development (BER) report tracking the progress of the National Development Plan (NDP). The document measures the extent to which South Africa’s development objectives, as detailed in the NDP, have been achieved. According to the BER, “With the Annual NDP Assessment Report, the BER and its network of collaborators hope to contribute to the accelerated, and ultimately successful, implementation of the NDP as we traverse the journey to 2030.”
The report finds that while South Africa has certainly progressed in many areas, it has not met several key indicators set by the NDP. In the education sector, for example, although the number of doctoral degrees obtained doubled from 1 500 to 3 000 over the period 2012-2019, this remained well below the target of 5 000; and, despite an increase in Grade R enrolment since 2012, access to early childhood development has not expanded. In health, whilst significant reductions in communicable disease as a cause of death have been evidenced, there has been a concerning increase in deaths attributable to non-communicable diseases. Furthermore, a lack of appropriately trained doctors and nurses remains a major concern.
Strong corrective actions are now considered necessary to meet the goals of the NDP. This will require the mobilisation of South African civil society at large, including government, private sector, religious institutions and NGOs.
PDF downloads are available below.
