Security through Nation-Building and Development

Abstract

While often understood as an economic programme, the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is fax broader than that, forming the basis of the ANC’s electoral campaign and becoming the macro-policy framework for the post-apartheid government. The ANC described the RDP as ‘an integrated, coherent socio-economic policy framework’ on the basis of which the ‘the ANC will develop detailed positions and a legislative programme of government’.¹ The White Paper on Reconstruction and Development published by the Government of National Unity in September 1994 had it in even more ambitious terms as a ‘framework for governance’ and a ‘framework for the renewal of society’.² The White Paper declared optimistically:

The policy framework behind the renewal which transforms society is the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). The RDP offers our country a unique opportunity to bring about renewal, peace, prosperity, reconciliation and stability. It is the product of ongoing consultation and it enjoys widespread support from all sectors of our society. It has been adopted and supported by all political parties in the Government of National Unity and in Parliament, and by all sectors of our society. It is rare for a new government to have a coherent vision. It is even more unusual for that vision to be supported by a national consensus.³