DINOKENG MESSAGE

South Africa faces critical social and economic challenges especially related to unemployment and poverty, safety and security, education, and health. These challenges are exacerbated by the global economic crisis. If we fail to recognise the severity of our challenges, and if we fail to address them, we will experience rapid disintegration and decline.

Our state is too weak to address the challenges by itself. State-led development will not succeed in a country where state capacity is lacking. In addition, pervasive state intervention – where the state is everything and all else is subordinate – breeds complacency and dependency among the citizenry and leads to the withdrawal of investment and disengage - ment by the business sector.

We can address our critical challenges only if citizens and leaders from all sectors actively engage with the state to improve delivery and enforce an accountable government.

Key ingredients for a sustainable future are:

• An effective and accountable state.
• Ethical, accountable and responsive leaders across all sectors.
• An engaged citizenry that holds government and sectoral leaders accountable.
• Interventions in the development of state capacity, education, safety and security, and health. These interventions are urgently required. They are a vital but by no means a sufficient condition for country success.
• A strong, sustainable economy. This is critical to unlocking development.
• Job creation through a vibrant private sector including small and big business.
• An appreciation that our future is intricately linked to what happens on the continent and globally.

The seeds of the future are contained in the present. Thus our scenarios begin with a diagnosis of the present.