Job For Growth
Foreword:
If you are reading this now, I would like you to close your eyes, and picture where you will be in 2035. What state will our country and province be in? What will be happening in our economy? Will we have enough jobs for future generations? Will there be hope? I am sure this exercise will cause you some anxiety, given the challenging times we face today.
Now imagine a 2035 where our economy is growing at between 4% and 6%. Where we are creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs, lifting people out of poverty. Where businesses, big, small, and informal, have the energy, water, infrastructure, skills and technology to grow and succeed. Where a child, no matter where they are born, has the pathway to a better life.
I am sure what you are now feeling is hope. The sort of contagious hope that cannot be contained.
This is the future we want for the Western Cape, and for South Africa. This is the better future we want to build.
During this time of difficulty for our country, with stagnant growth, devastating load-shedding, the real prospect of recession, and high levels of unemployment and despair, the question can be fairly asked: is it realistic for the Western Cape to be setting out so audaciously to achieve 4% to 6% of break-out economic growth?
The real question, I believe, is rather why South Africa is not already achieving this growth? We have everything we need to succeed as a country, if we just get the fundamentals of growth right. What is clear to me today is that we will never achieve it, if we are limited in our ambition, constrained by the wrong policies, and lack the courage to adapt, reform and make the right choices.
Change requires a vision, and it requires action towards it – so, yes, we can realise a better future for our country, and we must work toward it with determination.
The Growth for Jobs Strategy is the Western Cape’s bold step towards realising this better future. We know what the Western Cape, and South Africa is capable of, if we enable the private sector’s success.
And so, this Strategy provides a courageous vision for our province, with clear targets for each key focus area that our economy needs to succeed. To be clear, this is not just a vision for our government. The targets are not ours alone. They are yours too: business, big and small, civil society, entrepreneurs, and every citizen in our province. This is what we can achieve if we work together and make the right choices, now, today.
I am reminded of President Nelson Mandela’s wise words, which continue to hold so much truth today: “It seems impossible, until it is done”. Let’s get it done, so that a prosperous 2035 is not an imagination, but a new, real era of hope, opportunity and freedom.
Sincerely,
Mireille Wenger
Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities
Download Growth for jobs executive summary
Download Jobs for Growth Focus Points