Western Cape Growth for Jobs Strategy

Like the rest of South Africa, the Western Cape faces a range of deep, interconnected, socio-economic challenges that include unemployment, poverty and crime. While there is no panacea for these challenges, which have deep roots in the country’s history and social structure, there is also no prospect of addressing any of them without faster economic growth.

Economic growth is essential to generating rapid and sustained job creation, faster growth in living standards and increased resources available to society.

The Western Cape Government identified the need for a strategy to lift dramatically the provincial growth rate and, to the extent that growth continues to falter in South Africa, to decouple the province’s growth trajectory from that of the rest of the country.

Therefore, this Growth for Jobs Strategy sets out a comprehensive, challenging and ambitious goal for the Western Cape to grow its economy by between 4 and 6% by 2035.

It is also a strategy that clarifies that how we grow our economy is as important as the growth itself. In this way, the Growth for Jobs Strategy distinguishes itself from previous strategies, by providing a long-term perspective with clear targets, framed within defined principles. It is centred on systemic solutions that address key binding constraints and an enabling environment for the private sector that accelerates our economic growth.

The formulation of the Growth for Jobs Strategy has been data-driven, evidence led and has involved extensive consultation across government, with stakeholders from the private and public sectors, and representatives from across civil society and academia.

At its heart, the Growth for Jobs Strategy is premised on a recognition that the private sector creates jobs, while the State needs to create an environment in which people and businesses are enabled to create and exploit opportunities as they arise. This kind of ‘horizontal’ enablement empowers citizens and fosters independence, freedom, and self-reliance.

To give effect to this approach, the Growth for Jobs Strategy has several important anchors:

• Clear principles set out in a strategic framework that have guided thinking and decisions.
• Crucial priority focus areas (PFAs) that shape decisions around the nature of the interventions needed to maximise impact.

Key levers, enablers and accelerators that facilitate the achievement of the goals.

Finally, the Growth for Jobs Strategy is a whole-of-government, all-of-society strategy whose success requires the energy, commitment and allocation of resources from across government, the private sector and civil society.

The Growth for Jobs Strategy is the Western Cape’s bold step towards realising this better future, be a part of our journey!

Click on the cover images or on "download" below for a copy of either the summary or full version of the Western Cape Growth for Jobs Strategy.
 

Download Growth for Jobs Strategy: Executive Summary

Download Growth for Jobs Strategy: Full Version