Twisting our way out of the trap

DGMT is a long-term investor. We accept that many of the outcomes we seek to achieve may take another 10–20 years or require intergenerational change. However, whether those outcomes are achieved depends on what we as a nation do today and in the next few years. For this reason, we plan our strategy in five-year horizons, even as our compass is set by longer-term goals.

It is clear that, three decades post-apartheid, the structures of our society are not sufficiently changed to put our nation on a fundamentally different trajectory. Fewer children are dying in childhood, but their life prospects are not much better than those of their parents.

We know that trajectories of change take time, but we will only end up in a better place if we radically change the factors that determine the incline of the curve. And “radically” means “at its roots”. For human development, this means changing the day-to-day influences on the lives of every child from conception up.

We aim to change the prospects of children and young people, putting them on a fundamentally different trajectory to that of their parents and grandparents. At first, the difference may seem small and insignificant, but over time, as these paths continue to diverge, the effect of our investments should become clearer and more pronounced.

Twisting the nation’s trajectory 4

Trying to change life trajectories is ambitious and profound. It requires us to radically influence the lives of individuals and to be part of changing the circumstances in which they live. We are a small player and can only have far-reaching influence if our actions help twist the nation’s trajectory upwards.

South Africa is at a particularly low point in its post-apartheid journey. It was colonialism and apartheid that created the inequality trap from which we have been unable to escape, but this legacy has been made worse by bad decisions and corruption over the past twenty years. PostMandela, the failure to place children at the centre of development, AIDS-denialism and state capture have undermined our nation’s stability and future prospects.

But our position is that it is the action of bringing about positive change that constitutes hope, not whether the circumstances in which we find ourselves seem favourable enough to be hopeful. As public innovators, our power to shape the future lies in our ability to release systemic bottlenecks, prompt tipping points in public thinking 5 and capacitate and catalyse networks that become more energetic the larger they get 6 – through deliberate twists away from the status quo.