South Africa

Overview of SDG Progress

The delivery of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in South Africa requires a new sense of urgency if the promise of ending hunger and extreme poverty, reducing inequality, and ensuring peace and inclusive societies is to be achieved. Such a sense of urgency should be demonstrated through meaningful efforts to domesticate the 2030 agenda through policy alignment with the NDP and MTSF. This alignment must be enforceable at provincial and local government levels, establishing a system of governance fit for purpose, and fast-tracking delivery of the SDGs to the people of South Africa.

Overview of Climate Change

South Africa’s contribution to climate change is increasing, with greenhouse gas emissions rising. Although there are developments in the electricity supply sector to decarbonise, climate action requires broad and economy-wide measures which include liquid fuels (transport), industry both primary and secondary, agriculture, as well as waste, to name a few. Therefore, climate action is not occurring at the required level of ambition in South Africa. Adaptation to already prevalent impacts is not supported, nor are there sufficient initiatives to this effect particularly when considering human settlements. South Africa is increasingly experiencing extreme weather events such as floods and drought.

Civil Society Priorities

The institutionalization of the 2030 agenda through newly formed national coordination mechanism could bring the much required leadership in its implementation.
Accountability to South African citizens on SDGS remains to be a challenge as the broader citizenry who still have limited information about the SDGs.
Data utilization, legitimacy and capacity for civic voices is a concern as the tendency to only use official and administrative data to review the SDGs.

Civil Society Engagement

Open SDG Club South Africa symposium was hosted in Johannesburg from the 12 to 14 June 2019.
The VNR Citizens Report was written with direct contributions from civil society through research that focused on citizen’s voices and experiences
Local civil society organizations are empowered and better in-formed about the SDGs through information sessions and capacity building conducted as part of this project.

Public Awareness

African Monitor partnered with a media agency to implement a six-month campaign to popularize the SDGs, called Share Your Story. This media campaign was made up of three pillars, i.e. social media activation with a competition, SDG characters, and a live event with celebrity support. The full campaign report is attached. The outcomes of this campaign generated unpreceded media engagement for any African Monitor campaign held in the past. It was an innovative campaign through which African Monitor was able to attract the interest of ordinary South Africans.