The South African Economy: Coping with the Legacy of Apartheid

By 2000, the government was able to achieve many of the goals set under the RDP (Refer Exhibit VII for achievements of the RDP between 1994 and 2000); however, unemployment and poverty continued to remain high and threatened to negate the progress made. While a majority of whites continued to live in prosperity, a large section of the blacks continued to live below the poverty line. In fact, in 2001, it was estimated that 57% of blacks in South Africa lived below the poverty line, while only 2.1% of whites were poor. In other words, the economic disparities had not lessened significantly from the apartheid era.

South Africa was a unique country in many ways. While some regions in the country had infrastructure and prosperity levels comparable to developed countries, other regions were worse off than the least developed countries. There were extreme disparities in income and wealth among the race groups, as a consequence of the apartheid system. However, even thirteen years after the death of apartheid, these disparities remained as glaring as ever. Though in 2005 and 2006, South Africa's economy grew by around 5%, poverty and unemployment rates were still at high levels...