South Africa Issues Today

South Africa has been plagued for centuries by racial inequality and economic disparity. Blacks were relegated to mere servants of the white population. Apartheid, lasting from 1948 to 1994 furthered this gap between the races. When the apartheid-supporting Nationalist government lost its hold on power in 1994, the new ANC spoke of economic prosperity for all South Africans; however, economic disparity continues to plague South Africa, and there is still a high correlation between total income and race. South Africa has one of the highest Gini coefficients in the world, a measure of inequality in income. From a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being perfect equality and 100 being complete inequality, South Africa’s Gini coefficient is 63. In order for South Africa to become a more prosperous and successful country, it must invest heavily in programs for economic and infrastructure development because growing infrastructure and the economy doing so will benefit both the government and the people, it is also a big priority as much of our infrastructure is falling apart, and doing so will raise the standard of living that the people enjoy. We can invest in our economy through both large projects and through smaller loans to individuals to help them start their own businesses (microlending); therefore, due to the high priority of investing in our economy, it is necessary that 40% of the grant go to fund economic and infrastructure development; it is necessary because big infrastructure projects provide basic provisions for people to build a better and more advanced society on, whereas smaller projects focus on individual people and their lives. By attempting to improve the economy on both the governmental level and the individual level, it...

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