South Africa needs to leverage its strong and resilient “brand” in continuing to implement the National Development Plan (NDP), Brand South Africa head of research Petrus de Kock said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the second yearly Vision 2030 Summit, on Wednesday, he said the nation’s brand, its reputation and competitiveness would play a major role in realising the ambitions of the NDP.

“The reputation of a country is not only built by governments, it is shaped by everything . . . across spheres of activity,” he said, pointing to individual behaviour, students, business, infrastructure, science and innovation, governance and manufacturing, besides others.

The country has seen some improvements in a number of performance indices that could unlock the further opportunities needed to accelerate the implementation of the NDP and stakeholders should delve into how the existing perceptions could be leveraged and build on South Africa’s strengths, he told delegates at the summit.

He cited the latest EY Africa Attractiveness Survey, which showed South Africa as the top destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) projects, attracting 121 greenfield projects in 2014/15, far higher than the number in other African countries.

Egypt secured the second-highest number of FDI inflows with 71 projects and Morocco was third with 67 projects.

It also emerged that South African was the second-largest source of investment on the African continent, with some 53 projects launched over the period under review.

“We attract the bulk of FDI, but we are also the second-largest source of funding in the region,” he commented, pointing to South Africa’s prominent profile as an investor on the continent.

In addition, South Africa ranked fourth out of 54 overall on the continent in the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance 2015, securing scores in the top ten across all four categories.

In the sustainable economic opportunity category, the nation secured second place, followed by a fourth place ranking in participation and human rights, sixth place in the human development category, and seventh position in safety and rule of law.

Further, the 2015 United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index showed South Africa improving from a ranking of 123 out of 188 countries in 2010 to 116 by 2014, securing a value of 0.666, which had moved up 7.2% from the 0.621 in 1990.