South Africa's history, government, and social development

South Africa Economy

History of South Africa

Political Situation of the Country

South African Economy

Key Macroeconomic Variables

Justice/Judiciary System of the Country

Environmental Concerns

Health Concerns in South Africa

Society/Family/Culture of the Nation

Religion practiced in South Africa

Education

History of South Africa

South Africa has been a land of people with multiple cultural backgrounds since it was inhabited. Several centuries ago, people from different corners of African land migrated towards south and settled there with families. Additionally, many settlers came from European countries during the period of colonization together with black individuals from other African nations who were hired as slaves. Furthermore, many Asians travelled to South Africa in search of better employment and dwelled there.

Amongst the initial groups of foreigners that visited South Africa in sixteenth century, Portuguese were the prominent ones because they had established sea routes that made travelling convenient for them. Afterwards, European individuals entered the region and colonized it during mid-seventeenth century. They started businesses that mainly consisted of farming, which demanded cheap labor; therefore, slaves from other nations as well as locals were hired as servants. Although white population never outnumbered the locals; however, their power and superiority remained dominant.

Racial discrimination was prominent throughout the history of South Africa where whites were superior to blacks. When precious gemstones were explored in this territory, the local market position strengthened; thus, black population tried to improve their economic status by working extensively on farmlands. However, whites designed policies that dragged local people away from farms into slavery at mines.

A war was then waged between the local tribes and British leaders. After fierce confrontation and widespread destruction, whites stood victorious. During elections in twentieth century, whites became the ruling body who intensified racial discrimination, as they declared it official.

Although South Africa became a republic after few years, its racial prejudice policies remained unchanged. This triggered nationalism amongst the locals to an extent that under the leadership of their prominent leaders they led an enthusiastic and vigorous revolutionary movement. Consequently, South Africa became independent from the British rule in the last decade of the century.

2. Political Situation of the Country

When the British left South Africa, elections were held in which all local parties participated. Following to it, government was established in which the highest position and power was held by the president who was not only responsible of running the government but also was in charge of directing the matters of state. Furthermore, there was no separate individual who was elected as a prime minister of the state; hence, the duties were performed by the president himself.

South African parliament was based on houses, amongst which lower house that consisted of representatives of the elected as well as opponent parties had rights to choose the president by voting method. During the first free election of the state, the most popular party of that time namely African National Congress, which was headed by the most prominent revolutionary leader won a majority of votes and formed the government. Moreover, other local party and the one that was initially created by the whites formed the opposition in the parliament.

South Africa was primarily engrossed in economic decline and social discrimination for which the government took grave measures to eliminate them by forming groups of government-appointed individuals who were assigned to work in collaboration with the locals for the betterment of their living status. Similarly, government also aimed to elevate South Africans in all facets of life so that they can incorporate themselves in the globalized world and perform well.

As the years passed by, the party formed by the whites during colonial period began to lose its popularity, as it often withdrew itself from any unified pact that it formed with other parties. Another local party gained massive recognition after the second elections, which formed democratic alliance with the former party of the whites, as it was experiencing a drastic decline. This alliance was successful in gaining support of business and white community. However, the popularity of African National Congress remained high at this point also.

4. Key Macroeconomic Variables

South Africa is a region that demonstrates middle-income and emerging market, which is rich in its supply of natural resources. In other words, South Africa is a productive and industrialized economy, where the Growth Domestic Product (GDP) or the economic growth is expanded in the recent years. Even though, the facts and figures portrayed fall in the country's GDP fell nearly in 2009, but it was recovered in the years 2010 and 2011. The principal source of economy for the country comes from the manufacturing, services, mining, and agriculture industries, which are well developed. Moreover, financial, legal, communications, energy, and transport sectors are also well-developed that adds to the economic value of the country.

While looking at the unemployment rate, the statistical analyses have indicated the fact that more or less 15% of the students are likely to get a job within one year who has completed their studies up to matriculation. However, the majority of the students that almost makes more than 60% of the students remain unemployed after five years. This signifies the fact that a substantial proportion of the South African population is unemployed, which states that the unemployment rate is high to a considerable level.

National estimates of South Africa with reference to the percentage of the population that falls far below the poverty line have revealed apparent results, where almost fifty percent of the total population is below the poverty line. Considering the investments that include the total business spending on fixed assets, such as factories, machinery, equipment, and inventories of raw materials, the records have exposed that more or less 15% of the total GDP is spent on the investments within the region.

5. Justice/Judiciary System of the Country

South Africa has a unified and cohesive judicial system. The judiciary system of South Africa is an amalgamation of judges and magistrates, who are present in the court of the country. The judiciary is one of the branches of the government that works on an independent basis. The judiciary is basically dependent upon the constitution as well as the laws of the country. They are key responsible body for interpreting the laws of South Africa, which is constituted by the legislature in the enactment.

Rules, regulations and policies are defined by the Integrated Justice System (IJS) of the country, with the primary aim to elevate the effectiveness and efficiency of the criminal justice process. In order to achieve the aims, the justice system created high probability for successful investigations, prosecution, punishment for priority crimes and so forth.

The Supreme Court of South Africa is one of the superior courts of law, which is made up of various divisions based on local and provincial basis. The provincial and local divisions of the Supreme Court have specific authorities that are based over the geographical locations. Appellate Division is considered to be the highest division of the court within the country. The laws of South Africa has been constituted and formed, as a result of the influence from the English laws in procedure.

6. Environmental Concerns

Where it has been observed that South Africa is full of resources, on the other hand, it has also come to notice that environmental concerns also loom large as one of the issues that needs grave consideration. Amongst the environmental concerns, air pollution, marine pollution, soil erosion, soil waste, deforestation and desertification are the most common and prevailing.

Coal is one of the essential and vital sources for the production of fuel, which is equally consumed by the local people of South Africa. In order to meet the energy needs, virtually all of the households of the rural community burn fuel wood. This is one of the major reasons that are leading to deforestation within the country.

In fact, collection of the fuel wood is unsustainable because the burning of fuel wood also lead to air pollution. This is primarily due to the reason that the wood is burned within the surrounded space, which results in inadequate exposure to air for the people, which is an essential need. The inadequate ventilation due to burning of fuel wood creates harmful levels of pollutants to the rural homes, which ultimately begets to various health problems. Therefore, the industrial sector is one of the leading contributors to the air pollution.

Marine pollution is another serious issue of South Africa. High volumes of oil are transported from all the coasts of the country by ship from the Middle East to European and American regions. Due to this oil transportation, the country's coasts are vulnerable to the oil spills, which results in marine pollution to a high level.

Desertification is another widespread environmental issue of South Africa, which is a very harsh form of land degradation. The land becomes a waste of piece, where agricultural land gradually fails to produce. This means that the productivity is minimized to zero level, which distinctly declines the ecological health.

7. Health Concerns in South Africa

South Africa has witnessed a complete changeover within the healthcare system over the last couple of decades. This transition has complicated the concern of the health issues, where the environment is now filled with infectious diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and chronic degenerative diseases.

The mortality rates based on the data on national basis, clearly explicates the fact that the number of death in the current century have gone to double and triple times in comparison to the earlier years. This proves the fact that the mortality rates regardless of the age groups have gone downhill, where HIV and AIDS has been the key attributes of this enormity.

Few other chronic diseases that include vascular illness, diabetes, child diarrhea and malnutrition have emerged in the recent times. Records also reveal the fact that risk factors for heart related diseases have become highly common and widespread especially amongst the rural community f the country. This has even give rise to the enormity of obesity, which is even posing the female members of the community at a higher risk for various metabolic diseases. Hypertension is another dominating and frequently occurring illness amongst both the genders living in rural areas. With lack of access to the health care, not even one third of the rural population has the access to the treatment.

Violence and injuries are considered as the subsequent leading and prominent reasons of death occurrences within South Africa, apart from the lethal diseases. Gender-based violence, interpersonal violence, suicides, unintentional injuries and road traffic injuries are the primary consequences of violence and injuries that lead to high mortality rates.

The access to the health care, specifically for the black South African inhabitants residing in the poor parts of the region is poor, in fact, deteriorating. These people do not have the access to even basic health care facilities, while, on the other hand, the wealthier provinces and the city dwellers are leveraged with doctors and hospitals up to two times per capita.

8. Society/Family/Culture of the Nation

South Africa is one of the nations that are recognized for its cultural and ethnic diversity. Amongst the cultural and ethnic groups, the black African people are in the majority with a substantial number of rural inhabitants. These people are poor, deprived and depleted and have an impoverished life. However, the rural people have sustained their cultural traditions to the maximum in comparison to the blacks who have become urbanized and westernized, as the traditional culture amongst them have declined.

Since South Africa is rich in its culture, thus a number of different languages are spoken by the general population of the country. English and Afrikaans are usually the language of the urban blacks in addition to their native language. However, the Indian South Africans have truly preserved their cultural inheritance and language, regardless of their religions, as they typically speak English as the first language. However, other Indian languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and so forth are also spoken but as a second language.

Middle class families are the dominating ones over the country, who are mainly the white people of South Africa; nevertheless, black people are also growing in this category. These people are leveraged more opportunity to work and study abroad for greater exposure of the world.

Gender issues are one of the prevailing issues within the country. According to the general perception of all the racial and ethnic groups, women are considered to be less important and less deserving for power. On a broad spectrum, the traditional South African society have been a male dominant and centered society, however, in the recent years the role of women in the country has changed, whey they received both new hurdles and new opportunities to exercise their influence.

9. Religion practiced in South Africa

South Africa is one of the democratic societies where the residents have the freedom to practice their faiths and religion. The constitution from the historic days has enabled the citizens with the right to freedom in many aspects that even include the right of religion, belief and opinions. This is particularly due to the reason that religion is considered to be a significant part of everyday life for the populace of South Africa. With reference to the freedom of practice, South African population is full of ethnically and regionally diverse religions.

The traditional religion of South Africa have been originated from the inhabitants of Africa, however, the other religions that is being practiced within the region were predominantly brought by the residents that migrated from various parts of Europe and Asia. The commonly and widely practiced religions in Africa include Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Christianity is considered to be the most extensively practiced religion according to the statistical analysis, as the majority of the South African populations have claimed to practice the religion of Christianity. However, an insignificant proportion of the country's inhabitants are Hindus and Muslims, where most of the followers belong to the Indian descent. Moreover, the occupants practicing Buddhism and Jainism are very small in numbers.

According to the historical facts, the Dutch people along with the later British settlers were the earliest people who introduced the religion of Christianity, while, the religion of Islam was brought up by the slaves of the Dutch settlers. In addition, the records also reveal that enslaved labors who were imported from the Indian subcontinent were the primary people who brought the religion of Hinduism with them. However, Indian and Chinese immigrants were the key people to introduce Buddhism in South Africa. Jainism was brought by the Jewish people who came from Europe at the time when gold and diamond mines were started in South Africa and even after the Second World War.

10. Education

Education has also been one of the components on which the government of South Africa has focused. This signifies that over the years, South African population has become gradually more and better educated in comparison to many other parts of the world. This has been verified from the statistical records presented by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Report for the year 2011 that the literacy rate of South Africa is more than 85%, which makes them stand in the world literacy rankings.

The education records also exhibit the piece of information that a significant proportion of the children attending the schools have recorded a marked increase. In fact, the students who have completed their secondary education have also demonstrated a substantial growth in the recent years. This evidently proves that the education department of the country is making valuable contributions to the quality of learning and education, which is noticeable through their intensified interventions.

The government of South Africa has a clear focus with respect to the improvement of education system over the country, for which more than forty schools have been instituted with the prime objective to improve the education with proper facilities for the children to compete.

Even though the facts visibly indicate that government on a constant basis is investing and spending millions of dollars to the education system, yet they are not succeeding in achieving the desired results. This is very much elucidated from the low rate of students pursuing for university education. Additionally, the reality expose that the university and school standards are high, but still it is very low to the expectations to meet the international standard criterias. Moreover, the high fee structure of the university becomes a hurdle for majority of the students, as they belong to the poor class.