TIPS: Towards a reconstruction programme

3rd August 2020

In this policy brief, research organisation Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) South Africa's post-Covid-19 recovery.

The Covid-19 pandemic has dealt a body blow to the global economy, and South Africa is no exception. Recovery will not succeed, however, unless it addresses the long-standing blockages to inclusive growth.

That in turn requires both immediate efforts, to minimise the economic impacts of the pandemic even while it still rages, and longer-run strategies to diversify the economy away from mining and to ensure greater equality in education, workplaces, and access to assets. These kinds of strategies inevitably require innovation and consequently entail risks, as well as running into resistance from the beneficiaries of the status quo.

But South Africa will not achieve either higher growth or social cohesion unless it does more to promote a more inclusive, diversified and equitable economy. This policy brief reviews the short- and long-run impacts of the pandemic on the economy, followed by proposals for moderating these impacts while laying the foundations for faster, more equitable and more inclusive growth after the pandemic ends.