The South African Reserve Bank

To assess the likely trajectory of South Africa’s economy over the next few years and to outline the available options to restore and accelerate economic growth, the South African Reserve Bank, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA) commissioned a series of independent research papers. Supported with funding from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Fund for International Agricultural Research, this work began in late 2020 and concluded in 2021. The papers focus on current trends and developments in areas critical for economic growth and development: labour markets, trade, food price regulation, monetary policy and the environment. They present a number of alternative growth and policy scenarios. While these papers were intended to address the immediate implications of COVID-19, they all also inevitably point to the longer-term deterioration of the South African economy and provide some solutions.