As the Government of National Unity (GNU) keeps dithering on the brink of dissolution or reconstitution, South Africa and the world find themselves at crossroads as global, mostly economic, storms and the spectre of a third world war rage.
All signs point towards an imminent global economic black swan. There is no gainsaying that, unless intentionally mitigated, these exogenous forces will deepen domestic challenges, key among which are hunger, poverty, inequality and fracture, in the context of South Africa.
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History has taught us that steering the nation through a polycrisis requires attuned leadership bound by unity of purpose. Locked in internal squabbles, our leaders cannot seize opportunities like the 2025 G20 presidency to prevail over polycrisis challenges.
The statecraft needed for looming economic black swan
The polycrisis of our time is unfolding and worsening primarily due to American-Israeli unilateral actions threatening to collapse global governance.
For South Africa, reliant on imports, exports and foreign investment, such shocks threaten economic and social stability with the possibility of exacerbating hunger, crime and social fracture.
Leaders must act decisively to mitigate these risks, ensuring external pressures don't unravel national resilience. But, as we say in the Thuma Foundation's EPIC Leadership course, you cannot be resilient to external shocks if you are intrinsically fragile.
Leadership for navigating challenges like this requires the highest levels of statecraft and statesmanship. By statecraft, I mean the skill or art of governing effectively and achieving intended goals.
Charles Anderson, who coined the term 'statecraft' in 1977, defined it as:
The science of government in the broadest sense, encompassing the creation, poll maintenance and adaptation of political order.
A core competency needed in statecraft is what prominent South African thought leader Reuel Khoza refers to as attuned leadership.
In her book Confidence, Harvard Business School's Rosabeth Moss Kanter praised President Cyril Ramaphosa for leadership competence in turning losing streaks into winning streaks. Can we see some of that shoeing up now?
Intrinsic fragility lessons from Rome
History warns that external threats exploit internal weaknesses. Rome's fall, often attributed to barbarian invasions, stemmed from intrinsic flaws - corruption, division and eroded trust.
South Africa risks a similar fate if GNU leaders do not level up. Today, more than 60% of South Africans are poor and the country's Gini coefficient of 0.67 signals extreme inequality. Crime, with 45 000 murders a year, and fraying race and gender relations further weaken the social fabric.
Leadership united by common purpose - which should be the constitutional vision and transformative blueprint - is not optional, it is an existential imperative.
A nation hungry amid challenges
During the second expert symposium on Social Justice, Hunger and the Constitution that took place at the Bertha Retreat in Pniel, Western Cape, on April 10, experts from academia, government, business and broader civil society noted the polycrisis context as a threat to achieving zero hunger as constitutional fidelity regarding the right to food.
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Hosted by the Centre for Social Justice at Stellenbosch University, the multidisciplinary experts noted that more than 13 million South Africans face food insecurity, a 20% increase since 2019.
They predicted that that impending black swan will, just as the Covid-19 one did, exacerbate hunger and its drivers such as poverty, unemployment and inequality.
My key message in framing the conversation was to highlight the importance of statecraft attuned to the constitutional blueprint, in other words, constitutional governance.
Leaders must inspire hope, fostering dialogue and equitable policies to heal divisions and unlock social capital and economic potential - closing the gender gap alone could boost GDP by 10% by 2030. Imagine if we also closed the race and disability gaps!
Cocktail of governance and leadership challenges
Former president Nelson Mandela's vision of a rainbow nation demands active stewardship. Policies promoting education, land reform and corporate diversity can bridge racial and gender gaps, fostering cohesion. Hunger, a moral stain affecting millions, requires urgent action - global food price spikes must not deepen this crisis.
However, to select Constitution-congruent policy pathways, there is a need for constitutional governance enhancement tools.
This is one of the areas of improvement that was noted by the expert symposium on Social Justice, Hunger and the Constitution. There was agreement that many policy choices that have been adopted in the past 30 years of South Africa's democracy can be characterised as riddled with spray guns, Trojan horses, old wine skins and stray bullets.
READ: Thuli Madonsela | Will the GNU pivot right or left on social justice?
The proposed VAT increase that nearly saw a collapse of the GNU is an example of the danger of not assessing policies for their potential systemic impact and implications for hunger, poverty, inequality and the broader constitutionally mandated social transformation.
A key way to ensure synergistic collaboration in any group is to start with a shared purpose and vision, and a key set of beliefs and guardrails for holding each other to account regarding both where the group is going and how to behave along the away.
This seems to be lacking in the GNU, as seen in the near collapse of the partnership over the VAT increase and related tax provisions in the 2025/26 budget. Any club or society works because there is a shared belief in the club's constitution, values and conduct guardrails, which include dispute resolution processes. These seem lacking in the GNU.
The experts gathering to discuss ending hunger as a betrayal of the human rights and social justice commitment in the Constitution underscored the importance of leadership that is anchored in the transformative ethos in the Constitution reflected in approaching all governance challenges with a transformative governance lens.
This would ensure that no policy that will exacerbate hunger, poverty and inequality is adopted even as a temporary measure, and that if one is adopted as the only pragmatically available choice, it must be accompanied by a mitigation strategy.
In this regard, it was agreed that anticipatory impact assessment tools such as an AI-enabled Social Justice Impact Assessment Matrix, are no longer an option but are in fact statecraft imperatives.
Seizing the G20 opportunity to rise above the storm
History has taught us that a crisis can be the opportunity you need to unleash the excellence you need to rise.
South Africa's 2025 G20 presidency offers a platform to lead globally. Representing 80% of global GDP, the G20 is ideal for addressing trade wars, climate change and inequality.
READ: Thuli Madonsela | SA's G20 leadership opens field of possibilities for social justice
South Africa can advocate for debt relief, fair trade and technology transfers to spark Africa's digital and green transformation. By amplifying the global south's voice, it can ensure the polycrisis doesn't disproportionately harm vulnerable nations.
UN Secretary-General Ant nio Guterres urges:
We must act with ambition and urgency, leaving no one behind.
This is South Africa's chance to leapfrog towards a better future. Petty squabbles must give way to collective action. Political leaders should prioritise governance reforms, tackling corruption that ranks South Africa 72nd on Transparency International's index.
Business leaders must invest in jobs, skills and sustainable infrastructure. Public-private partnerships could unlock billions, bolstering resilience.
As Guterres warns: "We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator."
Eliminating internal fragilities such as lack of a shared vision and spiralling poverty and hunger, which open room for the triumph of demagoguery, is essential for weathering global disruptions.
Elevated statecraft competence will not only ensure we proficiently tackle existing pressing challenges such as hunger, but will also place South Africa in pole position to ride the impeding global storms and prevail through our resilience as a united nation. Will the GNU rise to the occasion?
- Professor Madonsela is the director of the Centre for Social Justice and Law Trust research chair at Stellenbosch University, and the founder of the Thuma Foundation.
