A Reflection on the 2026 GTAC Public Economics Conference held from 7–9 July 2026 under the theme “Counting the Crisis: Data, Evidence and Solutions for Youth Unemployment in South Africa.”

Three days.

Nine sessions.

Dozens of researchers, economists, policymakers, and programme leaders.

And at the end of it all, the question that the conference itself never formally asked is the one that matters most:

If the people designing these programmes would not put their own children through them, why are they still designing them for ours?

I attended all three days of the 2026 GTAC Public Economics Conference online.

I took some notes.

I disagreed with some sessions, and I am going to disagree openly now.

This is not a critique of the individuals who presented.

Many of them are brilliant.

Some of them were bracingly honest.

A few of them said things that have not been said in those rooms before.

But a conference is more than the sum of its presentations; it's a mirror.

And what this one reflected, over three days of data, research, and programme review, is a system that has accurately diagnosed its own failure and continues, with impressive institutional confidence, to prescribe the same medicine.

Let me go through the three days. Then I will tell you what I think it all means.

DAY ONE - THE DIAGNOSIS DAY

"Have we correctly understood South Africa's youth employment crisis?"

The conference opened with real energy. Sabelo Makhubo from Ubuntu Biz Show worked the red carpet with enthusiasm, interviewing students doing their final year, others studying towards their master's degrees, and PhDs in economics, statistics, data science, development studies, and shared their informed opinions on youth unemployment before the first session even began. These young people came prepared.

Vusi Maupa held the three days together with calm, intelligent precision.

The Minister of Finance delivered virtual opening remarks that I want to return to: he instructed youth not to be spectators but to provide direction and solutions. I fully agree. And I will return to what that instruction requires structurally.

The DG of the National Treasury, Dr Duncan Pieterse, and the new SARS Commissioner, Dr Johnstone Makhubu, walked the conference through data compilation, integration, and the vision of government systems that actually speak to each other. This is important.

Prof Bhorat's keynote was thorough with data, formulas and full methodology. His preoccupation was the informal economy, specifically his argument that South Africa's is undersized compared to other African economies and Mumbai, and that we've adopted a structured, near-formalised approach that limits its growth.

Here is where I begin to disagree, and I want to be precise about why.

Every second house in my street sells something.

You just have to knock and ask.

South Africans trade from semi-private, semi-structured, and community-embedded spaces, not from every street corner.

That is a cultural preference, not evidence of a smaller economy.

It is also not a problem to be solved.

It is a design to be respected.

And again, my biggest issue is the language we use.

Why do we call it the “informal economy?”

I think we should call it the “foundational economy” rather.

The word "informal" was coined by the British anthropologist Keith Hart in 1973, while studying income generation in Accra, Ghana.

The ILO defines the informal economy as comprising all economic activities by workers and economic units that are in law or in practice not covered or insufficiently covered by formal arrangements. This means: no registration, tax compliance, social protection contributions or labour law coverage. This definition says nothing about productivity, sustainability, community value, cultural embeddedness, or economic resilience. It is an administrative classification, not a quality assessment.

The foundational economy is to the South African economic system what the ECD teacher is to the education system.

It begins with people who arrive with nothing, no capital, no formal credentials, no access to banking infrastructure and no business networks. It meets them where they are.

It teaches the foundational skills: how to read a customer, how to manage cash flow, how to negotiate with a supplier, how to extend credit wisely, how to price, how to survive a bad month, and how to reinvest.

These are not informal skills.

They are the skills on which every formal economy depends, and they are skills that no business school teaches, because they can only be learned by doing.

And then, exactly as it happens with the Grade 1 teacher, the formal system takes what the foundational economy produced and delivers the credit elsewhere.

The entrepreneur who built a R500 million construction company started with a bakkie and a contract he found through someone he knew from a community hustle.

The accountant at a big corporation grew up in a household sustained by a mother who ran a catering business from her kitchen.

The bank executive's first lesson in financial management came from watching a father manage a stokvel.

The foundational economy trained them.

The formal economy absorbed them.

The formal economy got the accolade.

The foundational economy was studied as a problem to be solved.

This is exactly how South Africa has treated the foundational economy.

The foundational economy produced a tax base made up of professionals, workers, and entrepreneurs.

The taxi arrived on time when public transport failed.

The spaza shop extended credit when the bank said no.

The hairdresser made the young person presentable for the job interview that the formal economy struggled to offer.

And now, after decades of treating this economy as temporary, marginal, and transitional, we are asking it to come to the rescue of the formal economy that ignored it.

It is expected to step in after decades of waiting for the formal economy to deliver on its strategic mandate.

The foundational economy now has a dual mandate: supply what the formal sector cannot create and absorb what it cannot employ.

It deserves structural recognition in return. Not formalisation programmes that nobody asked for.

Not compliance frameworks designed by people who have never operated a spaza shop.

Not research papers written after a single site visit.

My opinion on the foundational economy is this: Leave it alone, except to give it five things: safety, infrastructure, platforms, a micro-lending facility and a 24-hour operational framework.

No additional compliance burdens.

No registration requirements that cost more than a six-month turnover.

No surveys that count tables on street corners and conclude that fewer tables mean less trading.

The Jobs Fund session closed on Day One.

And I want to be specific here.

Big ups to the Jobs Fund for commissioning twelve years (2012-2024) of research and presenting it publicly.

That is a first step that requires institutional courage.

Prof Bhorat's presentation of the research data was detailed and revealing.

Despite all the success during the period under review, 46% of Jobs Fund expenditure went to training.

To training in a country where 21 SETAs, the NSF, the NYDA, and multiple government departments already fund training.

That is duplication at a scale that requires a policy response, not a programme adjustment.

My position on the Jobs Fund is clear: The Jobs Fund must be repositioned as the exit strategy for government-funded training, not as another funder of it.

Its role should be to take people who have already been trained through SETAs, TVETs, NSF, and other training programmes and bridge them into sustainable employment, enterprise development, and procurement opportunities.

It should also remove learnerships, internships, and temporary placements from its performance measures.

These are not employment outcomes.

And the research report from 2012 to 2024 does not belong only to this conference.

It belongs to the youth in all nine provinces.

It must be taken to community halls, hubs, and centres.

Not via online.

The communities whose employment it was commissioned to create deserve to hear what twelve years of their tax money produced.

DAY TWO - THE POLICY DAY

"To what extent are current interventions shifting the dial?"

Day Two produced the most honest moment of the entire conference, and it came from exactly where it needed to come from.

The "Where will the jobs come from?" session opened with two researchers, one black and one white.

The black researcher presented, clearly and without hesitation, what structural labour market data has been showing for years but what is rarely said plainly at these events: a white youth with a matric certificate has a statistically higher probability of securing employment than a black youth with a tertiary qualification.

The labour market has a racial infrastructure.

Many young black South Africans are not unemployed because they lack qualifications.

They are unemployed because the labour market was architecturally designed to keep them out.

His white colleague presented a balanced, four-option framework for addressing the unemployment challenges.

Together, they made the most complete and honest presentation of the structural challenge that I had rarely heard in the three days.

I applaud their presentation approach.

For the first time in a conference of this nature, the most pertinent challenge facing the youth in the townships and rural areas was presented by someone with lived experience of it.

The conference approach typically speaks about black youth unemployment through the voice of those who have studied it.

The presentation confirmed something I have said publicly: it does not matter how fast the economy grows if the labour market's racial infrastructure remains intact.

We had growth under President Thabo Mbeki.

The structural employment gap for black youth did not close.

Growth alone is not the answer.

The architecture must change.

And if it is not going to change from outside the community, then the community must build its own employment infrastructure.

Which is precisely what the Youth Forum Blueprint and Y-GIDE (Youth Generating Income through the Digital Economy) are meant to address.

The Public Employment Programme presentation that followed was, for me, the low point of the conference.

I want to be direct.

I am not criticising the researchers from UCT who presented it.

I am criticising the decision to present the PEP, with its teaching assistant placements and stipend-based temporary positions, as a relevant solution to youth unemployment in 2026, at a conference that had a half-day dedicated to AI, digital transformation, and the future of work.

Cape Town has an established ICT ecosystem, a functioning startup infrastructure, proximity to international capital, and the highest concentration of tech companies on the African continent.

Why not present it as a solution to youth unemployment instead of PEP, which the government is already implementing?

And the policy intervention we are presenting to unemployed youth from Cradock, Orange Farm, and Cofimvaba is a teaching assistant stipend.

Directing unemployed youth toward placements as a measure of youth employment success is a political choice dressed as a development programme.

It has a historical parallel, channelling black people toward designated occupational categories has always been the mechanism through which structural inequality reproduces itself across policy cycles.

Nursing in one era.

PEP in the next.

The category changes; the logic of managed occupational aspiration does not.

My position: We need research on how to make Cape Town's ICT ecosystem accessible to young people from deep rural and township South Africa.

Not to bring them to Cape Town for a short course and send them home.

But to connect them, through the digital economy, to the infrastructure Cape Town has built, so that a young person in Cofimvaba can access global ICT opportunity from their community hub, earn in multiple currencies, build real wealth, and live the life they are dreaming of.

Because they are dreaming it.

They are already living on the edge of it through Amapiano, content creation and remote freelancing.

The active labour market programme review presentation was revealing precisely because it exposed, in the language of researchers and through the data of monitoring and evaluation, the same failure that the Fractured Futures analysis documents as Youth Development Balkanisation.

Billions spent.

Multiple institutions.

Disconnected programmes.

Limited employment outcomes.

No integrated tracking.

No community accountability.

The conference confirmed the diagnosis we have been making publicly.

The Basic Package of Support presentation was also valid in its recognition that youth unemployment requires a holistic and multidisciplinary response, coaching, one-on-one engagement and wrap-around support.

I support that direction completely.

But it left out the most important variable: access barriers.

You can coach a young black person for two years.

If the labour market's racial infrastructure is intact when they walk in the door, the coaching does not change the outcome.

We need programmes that simultaneously coach the youth and present the reality of their frustration, credentials, and capability directly to the labour market.

The system needs to be coached too, not just the youth.

The four panel discussions on youth employment interventions were the interesting part of Day Two.

One observation on the Presidency's programmes: The Presidency is doing significant work.

But the strategies and implementation remain the privilege of a small number of organisations with proximity to the centre.

Some of them have positioned themselves as quasi-departments operating on behalf of the youth development agenda in the country.

This is not sustainable, and it is not accountable.

The face of youth development, from national policy to community implementation, must reflect the people it serves.

This is a global debate.

There is now an international consensus that socioeconomic programmes in Africa must be led by the affected people themselves, not delivered on their behalf by those who are not affected.

The Forum Blueprint's Ward Development Councils, Regional Forums, and Municipal Forums are the structural expression of that principle.

Community-led. Community-governed. Community-owned.

DAY THREE — THE FUTURE DAY

"How should policy respond to technological change?"

Day Three was the day that most closely matched the reality of where South African youth already are.

The discussions on AI, the gig economy, platform work, and digital transformation were strategic and necessary.

Dr Brenda Mwale's presentation on the gig economy and digital transformation in the South African context was particularly relevant.

The panel on capitalising on technology-driven opportunities for youth employment was the conversation this country should have been having at a policy level five years ago.

We are late.

But we are here.

And the urgency must now match the delay.

The digital economy is not the future of youth employment in South Africa.

It is the present.

Our flagship programme Y-GIDE (Youth Generating Income through the Digital Economy) is already delivering it, young people generating income through remote work, e-commerce, AI, and digital services.

Not a future programme.

Operating now.

MY SIX POSITIONS - FOR THE RECORD AND FOR THE POLICY CONVERSATION

Position 1 - The Jobs Fund must become an exit strategy.

Stop funding training.

Start funding more employment.

Bridge trained youth in sustainable work, procurement, and enterprise.

And take the 2012–2024 research into all nine provinces, into community halls, not an online meeting.

Position 2 - Leave the foundational economy alone. And rename it.

Stop calling it informal. It is not informal. It is foundational. It predates the formal economy in our communities, it will outlast every structural adjustment, and it has produced more black business owners, tax contributors, and community sustainers than any government programme.

Give it safety, infrastructure, a platform, easy access to finance and a 24-hour operational framework.

Then step back.

The entrepreneurs inside it know what they are doing.

Position 3 - Build the 24-hour economy.

South Africa needs a foundational economy that operates around the clock, with local food outlets, clothing, grocery, and services running on shifts.

A digital economy where youth entrepreneurs work by day and employ other youth to manage operations by night.

Libraries, clinics, and community centres open 24 hours to anchor the infrastructure.

Uber and Bolt are already doing this.

The model exists.

The policy just needs to follow the community's lead.

Position 4 - Stop presenting PEP when Cape Town's ICT ecosystem exists.

The most relevant youth employment opportunity of our generation is the digital economy accessible through Cape Town's world-class ICT infrastructure.

We need research and policy that opens that infrastructure to young people in Orange Farm, Cofimvaba, and Bushbuckridge, digitally, through community hubs and fast broadband.

A young person from a rural area deserves to earn in dollars from a community digital hub.

A policy that offers them a teaching assistant stipend instead is not development.

It is a managed aspiration.

Position 5 - If you would not put your own child through it, stop putting it in front of our children.

This is the simplest quality assurance test in youth development that we need to adopt.

If you can't feed your own child, don’t feed it to a child out there.

They also deserve better.

Before implementing any youth programme: your siblings' children and your own, would you be happy to do this?

Would you be happy to enrol for a learnership and have no employment at the end?

Would you choose to operate your business in a densely congested street market?

Would you prefer to work as a school assistant after earning a master's degree?

If the answer is no, the programme does not reach our youth.

Ha e thome ka ngwakong, to check relevance!

If it's not relevant to your own.

STOP IT!

Position 6 - The face of the affected must lead.

Youth development cannot be led by people who are not affected by youth unemployment.

This is now a global consensus, not a sentiment or preference, but a documented, evidence-based finding that community-led development produces more durable, relevant, and trusted outcomes than expert-designed interventions delivered downward.

The Forum Blueprint's entire architecture is built on this principle.

The Ward Development Council is community-elected.

The Regional Forum is community-coordinated.

The Municipal Forum is community-governed.

No programme enters the community without community consent and community leadership.

This is the standard.

It is achievable.

And this conference, by its own design, demonstrated exactly what is lost when the Ward Development Council is absent.

WHAT THE CONFERENCE EXPOSED AND WHAT COMES NEXT

This conference confirmed three things simultaneously.

First: the diagnosis of the problem is now sophisticated, honest in places it has never been honest before, and well-evidenced.

The Balkanisation of youth development, fragmented across institutions, siloed in data, duplicated in programmes, and disconnected from community accountability, was visible.

Second: the solutions being proposed remain insufficiently bold.

PEP when the digital economy summons.

Training when employment is what's needed.

Compliance when community infrastructure is what's lacking.

International examples when community practitioners are building the answer locally.

Third: the voices most needed in these rooms are the least present in them.

Not as red carpet interviews before the sessions begin.

As panellists, researchers and programme designers.

As the people whose lived experience of youth unemployment is not data to be measured, but wisdom to be utilised.

The Youth Forum Blueprint addresses the third finding.

It builds the governance structures that give community youth formal standing in every IDP process, every shadow budget, every policy consultation, and eventually every conference that claims to speak on their behalf.

In future, these conferences will not be designed without ward-level community input.

They will not present programmes without community validation.

They will not measure success without community-owned monitoring instruments.

Not because researchers will finally decide to include communities.

But because communities will have built the structures that make their exclusion constitutionally indefensible.

That work has already begun.

Ward by ward.

Forum by forum.

Let’s start now.

You can start by inviting the Jobs Fund to your ward, municipality or province, to present their 12-year evaluation of the Jobs Fund’s Enterprise Development Funding Window, 2012 -2024

I’ve attached four documents from the conference for your perusal.

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