Policy reform in the post-Covid-19 world will be vital. Although there is a need to focus on immediate remedies, we also need to be simultaneously thinking about strategies to promote an economic recovery. In so doing, we will have to find ways to ensure that the economy is much more capable of generating growth than the economy was capable of in the decade prior to the outbreak of the pandemic. We also need to shift the economy in a much more labour-intensive direction. The Covid-19 crisis is devastating an economy that was already in big trouble. The challenges of turning this situation around will be great and there will be no easy solutions. CDE believes, however, that, were South Africa to adopt a package of realistic policies, backed by political will and astute political management, then significant progress could be made in building a faster-growing, more labour intensive post-pandemic economy.
