Institutional Co-ordination
There is a clear need to coordinate both messaging and programming to actively attract high-growth sectors and enable the investment the private sector is willing to make on its own. A clear and specific service offering must be developed and articulated towards providing services to investors in a more cohesive and effective manner, which includes high-level strategic objectives, institutional arrangements and associated KPIs to deliver on the country investment strategy (World Bank, 2019). This is directly linked to the socio-economic objectives of the ERRP in that it is this enabling environment and value creation by Government that creates the opportunity for developmental and catalytic conditions generated by quality investment. It is useful, in assessing the capacity of the state to execute this function to distinguish between various categories relevant to the coordination of the investment mandate:
- Investment mobilisation
- Investment promotion
- Investor intelligence
- Investment design
- Investment implementation
- Investment enabling
The investment coordination structures of government are spread across 77 distinct IPAs at the national, provincial and local level. Invest SA, though in theory the overarching IPA, has no direct authority over the other 76, nor does it directly instruct the diplomatic missions across the globe which conduct investment mobilisation and promotion activities in the context of economic diplomacy. The structural incentives embedded within legal, taxation and programmatic frameworks similarly lack co-ordination.
The investment coordination process is designed to do the following:
- Coordinate, direct and streamline investor mobilisation and investment implementation
- Effect investment fast-tracking aligned to key strategic criteria
- Coordinate and act on incoming investor intelligence; specifically with respect to driving investment design with state support
- Track the universe of investment relevant commitments elevated from the ERRP, sector masterplans and other relevant sources.
- Elevate the commitments that need specific coordination attention from the Presidency as Country Strategic Investment Programmes (CSIPs), with the infrastructure-linked versions of these phasing into SIPs.
