The National Planning Commission (NPC), in its capacity as an independent advisory body and custodian of the National Development Plan (NDP): Vision 2030 has completed a detailed and thorough ten-year review of the progress made since the adoption of the NDP in 2012. The NDP is South Africa’s comprehensive developmental vision and the only cross-cutting long-term plan for national development in South Africa. Its strategic goals include the elimination of poverty and the reduction of inequality and unemployment by 2030.
The review assesses the key NDP indicators or targets, such as poverty, inequality, and unemployment for the past ten years (i.e., 2012-2022), it also evaluates the extent to which planning has been institutionalised and what reforms have been undertaken to the country’s planning system following the adoption of the NDP. The assessment is timely given that 2024 will mark the end of term for both the sixth administration since South Africa’s democratic dispensation, and the current 2019-2024 cycle of the Medium-Term Strategic Framework (MTSF), which guides the work of all government entities.
The findings of the NDP review indicate that the vision of a future South Africa expressed in the NDP has not materialised over the past decade. At the heart of our current developmental impasse has been a failure to keep the NDP in focus and at the centre of our developmental trajectory as a country. Instead of keeping the long-term plan in view and using it to inform planning and implementation across government, it seems that the NDP has been marginalised. This has reinforced incoherent planning and poor implementation. There is no single cause of the failures to achieve the NDP goals, instead there are multiple interlocking causes detailed in the Review. Some of these include systemic challenges compounded by a combination of contextual challenges, such as the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, inappropriate policies, weakening governance, corruption, rising crime, and increasing social disintegration.
Alongside the Review, the NPC will issue a urgent Call to Action to reassert the significance of the goals of the NDP as the lodestar of our developmental vision as a nation, rooted in good governance, economic transformation, social cohesion, and a just transition to more sustainable development pathways. These goals remain as relevant today as they were in 2012, if not more so. A state-centric approach to planning and implementation is no longer adequate; for the goals of the NDP to be achieved, a comprehensive, coordinated and partnership-based approach to development is required. Such a holistic and collaborative approach will necessarily involve various sectors of civil society, all of government, and the private sector. We therefore call on all South Africans to engage with the Ten-Year Review and play their part in the achievement of the goals of the NDP over the second decade of the NDP up to 2030.
The details of the launch are as follows:
Date: 8 September 2023
Time: 09h30 – 11h00
Venue: Room 159, Union Buildings (East Wing)
Kindly RSVP to:
Sandisiwe Mapine
Cell: 071 370 1048
E-mail: Sandisiwe.Mapine@dpme.gov.za
Kindly direct all media queries to:
Zarina Rahman
Cell: 082 345 2919
E-mail: Zarina@dpme.gov.za
