Can you measure social cohesion in South Africa?

And can you fix what you don’t measure?

By : Alan Hirsch, The Presidency, South Africa and University of Cape Town

Findings of the OECD Development Centre Global Development Report -

•Social cohesion is made up of social inclusion, social capital and social mobility
•Social cohesion supports economic growth
•Key areas of policy to support cohesion are:
–Fiscal and tax design
–Employment
–Social protection
–Civic participation
–Education
–Gender and
–Migration

Findings in terms of the OECD Global Development Report –South Africa
•South Africa is ahead of the pack in fiscal and tax design
•Social protection is relatively well developed; South Africa is one of the leaders amongst developing countries
•South Africa has positive indicators for trends of employment of women and women’s political representation
•Civic participation is good
•On education, participation is good, but quality is poor for the poor
•On employment, the market has done poorly but there are good public employment programmes
•On migration, there is a hostility towards immigrants from other parts of Africa

We will explore these indicators in more detail

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