An examination of South Africa's APRM's SED Thematic area implementation outcomes 2003-2013

Abstract

The story of socio-economic transformation in Africa generally is not one of satisfactory success, thus in the quest for good governance to remedy this deficiency, the African Peer Review Mechanism was established. The APRM came into existence in 2003 with the central purpose of promoting political, economic and social best practices in public affairs for all its participants. Although South Africa has witnessed the evolution of APRM, there seems to be a missing link between the commitment and implementation of APRM precepts. The study examines South Africa’s implementation of the APRM’s socio-economic development (SED) theme from 2003 to 2018. It focuses on evaluating the dimension of South Africa’s socio-economic development as an outcome of South Africa’s adherence to APRM’s SED thematic precepts, which continue to pose as a major impediment to overall development, transformation and socio-economic growth efforts of the country. One of its objectives is to analyse the factors that shaped the outcomes of the implementation of the SED thematic area of the APRM in South Africa between 2003 and 2018. The study adopts a qualitative research methodology. Data were collected from interviews as well as journal articles,books, reports and statistics, as well as some documents relating to the study. It found that high unemployment rate, political corruption, poverty, poor healthcare service, dysfunctional education system and abysmal public spending were some predominant consequences of South Africa’s SED implementation outcomes in the understudied period. These negative consequences were found to gravely undermine South Africa’s socioeconomic development efforts between 2003 and 2018. The study’s findings indicate that South Africa’s implementation of the APRM’s SED theme during the period under review showed a low commitment to the APRM SED precepts by South Africa’s regimes between 2003 and 2018. Given the aforesaid observation, the study recommends amongst others increased political commitment and sound political leadership to implement the APRM’s SED theme; adoption of meritocracy in political appointment in key sectors charged with advancing South Africa’s APRM’s SED theme; and elimination of corruption.