2014 did not only commemorate 20 years of democracy, it also marked the year that the South
African government had set for itself to meet, and surpass, most of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were adopted in September 2000 through the Millennium
Declaration at the 55th session of the United Nations General Assembly, convened as the
‘Millennium Assembly’. South Africa had also set specific goals of its own in 2004 – some of
which overlapped with the MDGs –that were to be achieved by 2014. These include: reducing
poverty and unemployment by half;providing the skills required by the economy;and reducing
cases of tuberculosis, diabetes, malnutrition and maternal deaths, turning the tide against
HIV/AIDS, and reducing preventable causes of death.It is clear that due to policy paralysis,
many goals will be missed.
Although South Africa sequenced policiesand reforms relatively well from the 1990s to mid-
2000s, binding policy constraints since then have restrictedthe country’s ability to meet all
MDGs on time. Arguably, the MDGs would have been achievable hadit not been for these
constraints, which resulted in failure to properly address the legacy of apartheid colonialism. The
argument that South Africa’s socioeconomic progress is limited by skewed global power
relations does not account fully for the inability to achieve the MDGs. The alternative view that
South Africa has not progressed enough regarding social and economic development because of
state-capital relations alsohas only partial explanatory value – most, if not all, of the targetscould
have been achieved through effective public policies