Enterprising Cape: Building an Inclusive and Vibrant Economy

FuturesCape Policy Brief 3 of 2015. Western Cape Government Policy and Strategy Chief Directorate and Strategic Initiatives Chief Directorate in collaboration with the African Futures Project. Western Cape Government, Cape Town, South Africa.

The Western Cape faces two interrelated sets of development challenges in its efforts to become a more cohesive high-income society and economy. The first is unequal access to basic services and economic opportunities. The second is an economic environment with inadequate technology, skills, and governance to enable it to move rapidly from middle-income to high-income status. This FuturesCape policy brief analyses these two sets of challenges and explores some of the outcomes of pursuing policies designed to address them – first in isolation and then in combination. It compares these outcomes with a Base Case, which is how the future might be if no significant changes were made to the Western Cape’s current mix of policy strategies. Under such a Base Case scenario, the Western Cape won’t reach high-income status until around 2040.