African Peer Review Mechanism Self-assessment Technical Report: Socio-economic Development

South Africa enters its second decade of freedom as a united, non-racial and nonsexist democracy. Centuries of foreign colonial rule and decades of apartheid colonialism had impacted on the political economy and the socio-economic fabric of the country. The resultant racial, gender and spatial imbalances, largely recognised as legacies of an abhorrent past, persist albeit in diminishing forms. The transition to the democratic South Africa in 1994 has witnessed major transformations across the political, economic and social spheres. This has enabled significant progress in reducing the disparities between the peoples of South Africa whilst progressively shifting resources to enable better and more adequate access to services and infrastructure by those most discriminated against in the past.