This document discusses South Africa's transition into the 21st century and proposes four potential paths for South Africa to 2050. It identifies several challenges South Africa faces, such as high unemployment and inequality. It also notes opportunities, such as population stability and economic competitiveness. The document advocates for renovation through approaches like urban redesign, industrialization, and connectivity to make South Africa a prosperous, small country in Africa by 2050. It raises questions about uncertainties and choices to guide South Africa along a preferred transition path.

1. UMZANSI 21
South Africa in the 21 st Century
Shahid Solomon

2. It is not yet here ?
It is has gone past ?
It is moving now ?

3. TRANSITION
Past Present Future

4. IMPLIES
• Systems that change in interconnected ways
• An inevitable destination
• Unpredictable Journey: messy, fuzzy & zig-zag

5. e.g. growing up!

6. Transition is slow + simple
– Past is clear
– Present is obvious
– Future can be predicted
Transition is fast + complex
– Past needs analysis
– Present is slippery
– Future is uncertain

7. A 21ST CENTURY WORLD
FAST + COMPLEX TRANSITION
FROM ADOLESCENCE TO ADULTHOOD

8. REACHING PEAK POPULATION

9. 9 10
7

10. ON THE PLANET BOUNDARY
• Ocean acidification
• Nitrogen cycle (N) cycle
• Freshwater use
• Land system change & soil loss
• Biological diversity loss
• Chemical pollution
• CO2 : Climate change

13. HOW DOES OUR THINKING NEED TO CHANGE?

14. ACCEPT:
WE ARE ALL PART OF A RADICAL TRANSITION
TO A MATURE & SUSTAINABLE WORLD
RAPID, ACCELERATING AND DEEP

15. What powers our world energy
What enables our world economy + technology
What connects our world networks + internet
Who we are the networked self
What we think is important global values
Who runs the world global politics

16. WE NEED TO RE- NOVATE: MAKE SYSTEMATIC TIME
PATH CHOICES
• Think System
• Think path
• Think inter-generational
• Embrace Uncertainty

17. “Humans create their own futures ….and they do
so by making decisions and taking action.
Scenarios…..enable…..better decisions as a result of a
better understanding of the choices they may face and
the potential consequences of those choices.
….allow decision makers ….to design custom systems
…”
The Role of System Theory in Scenario Planning
Thomas Chermack Journal of Futures Studies, May 2004, 8(4): 15
- 30

18. GLOBAL SCENARIOS TO 2050
FOUR DRIVING FORCES
• A Dark Horse
• Five Bright Horses
• Two ZEBRAS
• Seven Human Generations

19. THE DARK HORSE

20. CONTESTED CONCEPT OF STATE
NATION- STATIST?
VESTED INTERESTS ISLAMIST ?
IN NARROW SOCIALIST?
FUTURES? ANARCHIST ?
A GLOBAL
SOLUTION FOR
GLOBAL ISSUES

21. FIVE BRIGHT HORSES

22. LIFE GETTING BETTER FOR MORE PEOPLE
FASTER THAN EVER BEFORE AND WILL PROBABLY CONTINUE TO
DO SO

23. Population Growth Rates Declining
Better Quality of Life
• Famine has become rare
• People are Living 25% longer than 40
years ago
• Greater choice & opportunity than ever
before
• More holidays, media choice,
information
• Better health: lifestyle diseases now
key issue

24. Higher Standards of Living
• According to the World Bank, extreme
poverty ($1.25/day) has fallen from 1.94
billion people (52% of the world) in 1981 to
1.29 billion (about 20%) in 2010
• GDP per person has doubled since 1970
• Cost of Communication has been slashed
• Price of metals reducing
• Global Middle Class (e.g Italy, Spain)will
grow from 7% to 17% by 2025

25. RELENTLESS TECHNOLOGY AND
INNOVATION BREAKTHROUGH

26. • The Green Rush
• fast rail
• super efficient solar
• 100% Recycling
• On Line World
• Network-linked chips run everything
• Talking video smartphones for all
• Personal Computing Device
• Biotechnology: Biology +
Nanoscience + Information Science
• algal ponds generate aircraft fuel
• Redesign of materials
• Redesign of the human being:
• Genetic Engineering
• Transhumanism

27. ONE WORLD ONE SOCIAL NETWORK

28. Billions can now exercise instant cross
sectional “like”, choice and influence
as
– Citizens
– Shareholders
– Consumers
– Workers
– Entrepreneurs
– Groups
– Communities

29. FRESH THINKING

30. Seeds of New Global
Consciousness
Emergence of Asian &
African Values

31. TWO ZEBRAS

32. GLOBAL FINANCE
Global Casino of Financialisation?
OR
Recapitalise Re-novation of
Global Infrastructure ?

33. GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS
More Rounds & Rounds of
talking
OR
Executive Global Government ?

34. BRINGING IT HOME: SEVEN GENERATIONS

35. BUILDERS + BABY BOOMERS + GEN X WILL
HAVE TO LEAD THE TRANSITION

36. Builders
• Born: Before 1945
• Average Current Age: 75
• Characteristics: Conservative
• Running the World: Now

37. Baby Boomers:
Yuppies & Hippies
• Born: 1945 - 1965
• Average Current Age: 60
• Characteristics: Idealistic &
Competitive
• Running the World: Now - 2030

38. Gen X
• Born: 1960 - 1980
• Average Current Age: 45
• Characteristics: Individualists
• Running the World: Now - 2050

39. GEN X + Y + Z WILL HAVE TO MANAGE
THE TRANSITION

40. Gen Y
• Born: 1995 - 2010
• Average Current Age: 25
• Characteristics: Optimists,
Tech Comfortable
• Running the World: 2030 -
2070

41. Gen Z “Born Free”
• Born: 1995 - 2010
• Average Current Age: 10
• Characteristics: Tech Savvy,
Tolerant, Globally Connected
• Socially Responsible
• Running the World: 2050 - 2090

42. GENERATION ALPHA AND BETA WILL
LIVE THE CHANGE

43. Gen Alpha
• Born: 2010 – 2025
• Average Current Age:
• Characteristics: First Globals,
Highly Tech Savvy & Enabled
• Running the World: 2070 -
2120

44. Gen Beta
• Born: 2025 – 2045
• Average Current Age:
Unborn
• Characteristics: Post Tech ,
True Globals, Genetically
Engineered “New
Humans”
• Running the World: 2090 -
2140

45. FOUR GLOBAL PATH SCENARIOS TO
2050

46. Real Global
Governance
Plutocracy Bright
Horses
Charge
Gated Open
Internet Internet
Dark
Horse Anarchy
Stumbles
Ad Hoc
46
Multilateralism

47. AFRICA IN TRANSITION

48. FASTEST GROWING & DEVELOPING CONTINENT IN
21ST CENTURY

49. REAL GDP PER CAPITA WITH GROW AT 4,4% PER ANNUM
2012 – 2050 + MASSIVE URBANISATION

50. FOUR AFRICAN PATH SCENARIOS TO
2050

52. One
Emergent
Africa
Green
Rich Dad Poor Continent of
Dad the 21st
Century
Human &
Extractive
EcologicaI
Investment Rich
Asian Investment
Path Resource Country
Poor Path
Pool
Country
Five Colonial Africas
52

53. SOUTH AFRICA : A MODEL OF
TRANSITION LOSES ITS GLAMOUR

54. A PAST NOT EASY TO LEAVE BEHIND

55. • Apartheid was an expensive social engineering
project
• The Liberation Struggle was also expensive
• Three generations damaged
• Baby Boomers fought the Cold War
• Generation X completed the struggle
• Generation Y picked up the pieces

56. Post 1994 structural adjustment was too much
of a shock
– SA de-industrialised
– China took the Gap

57. • New Democracy did a brave job of building
lots of houses, clinics and schools
– In dysfunctional settlements
– With immature institutions
• Big Business Divested, economic patriotism
was slow in coming

58. SA IS NOT A MODEL FOR AFRICA
• 40% unemployment compared with
only 7% in African Countries
• Resource intensive service economy
not generating jobs

59. NINE PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED IN
THE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR 2030
• Too few people work
• Quality of school education for black
people is poor
• Infrastructure is poorly located,
inadequate and under maintained
• Spatial divides
• Resource intensive unsustainable
economy
• The public health system capacity and
quality
• Public services uneven + poor quality
• Corruption high
• Divided society

60. WHATS HOLDING SOUTH AFRICA
TOGETHER & PULLING IT APART?

61. STRONG CENTRAL SYSTEM WITH FIVE FRACTURING SYSTEMS
MONOPOLY
FRACTURE
WORKFORCE URBAN
FRACTURE FRACTURE
CORPORATE
CENTRE
PRODUCTION
SOCIAL FRACTURE
FRACTURE

62. CORPORATE CENTRE
Solid
Financial
System
Macro
Competitive
Economic
Corporate s
Stability
White
Stable
Middle
government Class
Black
Middle
Class

63. URBAN FRACTURE
Motor Car
based Cities
Huge Carbon Apartheid
Footprint Cities
Low
Productivity

64. ADDITION TO NINE PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED BY THE
NDP)
GAUTENG MEGALOPOLIS

65. SOCIAL FRACTURE
Townships
Social
Fragmentati Poverty
on
Poor
Mimetic
Education &
Apartheid
Health

66. WORKFORCE FRACTURE
High
Unemployment
Growth Poor Labour
Ceiling Relations
Grant
Low Skills Relieved
Poverty

67. INDUSTRIAL FRACTURE
Cheap Coal
Electricity
Huge Carbon Cheap
Footprint Labour
Resource Minerals
curse Export

68. MONOPOLY FRACTURE
Big
Government
Stifled Small Big Business
Business
Big Trade
Unions

69. SOUTH AFRICA 2050

70. A RICH LITTLE COUNTRY IN AFRICA

71. SMALL & STABLE
• Population Stable & Ageing
• Gets dwarfed in the African context to 2050
Country Population (millions)*
2012 2030 2050 GAIN
2012 -2050
SOUTH 50 54 56
+6
AFRICA
TANZANIA 47 81 138
+91
NIGERIA 166 257 389
+223
* UN Projections 2012

72. PROSPEROUS
• SA High Economic Competitiveness
• Most sophisticated economy in Africa

73. DYNAMIC
• Economic Nucleus of 250m in Southern Africa

74. EMERGING MARKET LEADER :
Faster GDP growth than Indonesia, Egypt,
Nigeria and Turkey

75. RE-NOVATING SOUTH AFRICA ?

76. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN 2030
Vision Statement: 12- pages of mythical national
poetry
– 12 Themes
– 73 Objectives
– 119 Actions

77. TARGETS
• Eliminate Income Poverty: zero households with
income below R 419 (2009)
• Reduce Inequality: GINI from 0.69 to 0.6
• Increase employment from 13 - 24 million
• Raise per capita income from R 50 000 -R 120 000
• Increase the share of national income of bottom
40% of people from 6% to 10%
Its approved so it shall happen…

78. QUESTIONS
• What Global & African scenarios ?
• Why did previous strategies & plans fail?
• What uncertainties?
• What mythology are we replacing?
• What systems?
• What choices + consequences?
• What step path to 2020 > 2030 > 2050?

79. FOUR SOUTH AFRICAN PATH
SCENARIOS TO 2050

80. Fractures
Healed
CENTRE
HOLDS
African African
Island Finance &
Knowledge
Hub
Closed To Open To
Africa Africa
African
Crime African
Capital Casino
CENTRE
FOLDS
Fractures
Widen
80

81. OPTIONS FOR MASSIVE DISRUPTIVE
POSTIVE SYSTEMS CHANGE ?

82. BUST THE CULTURAL DNA
CODES THAT HOLD BACK ?
DISCARD THE USED FUTURE
South Africa? Azania?
ACKNOWLEDGE THE REALITY OF THE
DISOWNED FUTURE
Capitalism, Socialism, Apartheid,
Inequality, Exile, Brutality, Struggle,
Flight

83. LIVE A RATIONAL
OPTIMISTIC CULTURE OF
UMZANSI TRANSITION AND
RENOVATION ?

84. SMASH THE APARTHEID TEMPLATE WITH BOLD
URBAN RE-NOVATION ?
Joburg Central Park

85. INDUSTRIALISE FOR A GREEN CONTINENT ?

86. FAST TRACK SOUTHERN AFRICA
CONNECTIVITY + INTEGRATION ?

87. TURN IKASI INSIDE OUT ?

88. UNLEASH BOTTOM UP ENTREPRENEURSHIP ?

89. OUT OF BOX FAST TRACKS FOR HEALTH AND
EDUCATION ?

90. WORK BACK & WORK FORWARD
LOOK OUTSIDE IN & INSIDE OUT

91. HAVE THE CONVERSATION
PULL IT TOGETHER INTO CLEAR
STORY OF CHOICES & FUTURES

92. DESIGN & BUILD A FORESIGHT SYSTEM AROUND THE
NDP
– Linking with the Strategy + Budget Cycle
– Connecting SA Futures to Africa & World Futures
– Think long past 1900 and future 2050
– Design a transition path
MANAGE A GLOBAL LOBBYING STRATEGY AROUND
PREFERRED AFRICAN & GLOBAL SCENARIOS

93. SYNCHRONOUS TRANSITION

94. LINK NATIONAL CONVERSATION TO:
• Regional Re-Novation
• Institutional Re-Novation
• Enterprise Re-Novation
• Human Re-Novation

95. CONCLUSION

96. By mapping the past, present and future
By anticipating future issues and their
consequences
By being sensitive to the grand patterns of change
By deepening our analysis to include worldviews and
myths and metaphors
By creating alternative futures
By choosing a preferred future and back casting ways to
realize the preferred future
We can create the world we wish to live in .
Sohail Inayatullah (2008)

97. THE RE-NOVATOR
• Urban Planner
• Futurist
• Re-novator

98. Umzansi 21: Renovating South Africa
in the 21st Century (publication under
development)
Blog:
http://shahidsolomon.wordpress.com
novation 2050@facebook.com
www.novation2050.co.za
Novation 2050 is on Facebook