South Africa: Business and Governance
Charles Wheelan, Senior Lecturer and Policy Fellow
December 2023
Johannesburg, Pilanesberg, and Cape Town
The objective of the 2023 South Africa GIX is to explore the crucial relationship between good governance and a vibrant private sector. Our focus is South Africa, obviously, but there will be lessons for the United States and other countries, particularly around South Africa’s ongoing efforts at racial reconciliation. Since South Africa’s remarkable and inspiring democratic transition in 1994, the nation has struggled to deliver on Nelson Mandela’s promise of a “rainbow nation.” To make this aspiration a reality, South Africa needs more transparent governance and better infrastructure (e.g. dependable electricity). At the same time, and despite those impediments, the private sector must deliver significant growth to provide economic opportunity for the rough eighty percent of citizens who were ruthlessly denied opportunity during the apartheid era. Through our meetings with business leaders, entrepreneurs, journalists, and diplomats, we will probe the path forward for a country poised between becoming a beacon of hope or a failed state.