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South Africa has secured $24.5 billion in investment pledges at a high profile business forum in Johannesburg on Wednesday. The gathering is the second instalment of the South Africa Investment Conference, part of an initiative led by president Cyril Ramaphosa to attract $100 billion of investment by 2023.

This is a pillar of promises by Ramaphosa to kick-start growth in Africa’s most advanced economy after the stagnation of the Jacob Zuma years. This year’s $24.5 billion follows $35 billion pledged in 2018, ostensibly putting the country ahead of schedule.

Celebrating the milestone, Ramaphosa said the pledges show that South Africa is “firmly on the road to recovery”.

The optimism is difficult to reconcile with the country’s bleak economic prospects. Moody’s has just changed its outlook from stable to negative, at one notch above ‘junk’, following warnings about soaring debt and stalling growth in a mid-term budget speech on October 30.

This comes amid steadily waning confidence in reforms under Ramaphosa.

It’s not obvious how high profile conferences and pledges are going to help, not least because it remains to be seen how much is actually realised, and whether this can address issues like a 29.1% unemployment rate, and stalled growth.

The bottom line is that no amount of pledges can bypass the increasingly urgent need for meaningful economic reform.

This report reflects the views of the author alone, not those of How we made it in Africa.

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The global perspective

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