Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa

The Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy has been one of the most direct attempts to achieve racial transformation in the South African economy. This chapter analyses the BEE programme and its outcomes against a wider understanding of meaningful economic inclusion, and offers a pragmatic, critical view of how BEE’s implementation transpired, and the pathways forward. The chapter builds on a vast literature to highlight that looking only at quantitative outcomes of BEE misses key issues in terms of the high barriers that sustain exclusion and concentration. Although BEE has evolved in the right direction, it has not done enough and a broader, integrated approach is required. Priorities for the pathway forwards include a focus on high barriers that exclude black businesses and people, funding as part of a broader set of interventions, coherence with parallel social and economic policies, and a strategic role for procurement and enterprise development.