South Africa faces a range of risks, from unemployment to governance failures and cyber-attacks that threaten the country’s ability to grow and thrive.
This is according to the fifth edition of its Risk Report: South Africa Risks 2019 by the Institute of Risk Management South Africa (IRMSA).
According to Christopher Palm, chief risk advisor at IRMSA, the document aims to be an informative and instructive reference to the nation’s top risks at both country and industry level. Its contents are the result of surveys carried out with ±1028 contributors from a variety of business and risk related roles.
“However, we also see it as an invitation to business, government, the public and risk professionals to work together to solve these challenges and build a better society for the future,” he notes.
Palm comments: “Our members should lead the way by not just reading the document but taking into the leadership discussions, influencing their organisations and communities to do something concrete with the suggested risk responses. We want them to become risk activists.”
According to the study, the top risks South Africa faces are:
• Structurally high unemployment
• Growing income disparity and inequality
• Failure of governance in the public sector
• Unmanageable fraud and corruption
• Inadequate and/or substandard education and skills development
• Energy price shock
• Labour unrest and strike action
• National policy uncertainty/instability
• Cyberattacks (ransomware, algorithm shutdown of the internet of things)
• Macroeconomic developments.
The report concludes that the top 10 risks to industry are:
• Failure of public governance;
• Inadequate and/or substandard education and skills development;
• Cyberattacks (ransom, algorithm shutdown of the internet of things);
• Information security (data fraud and data theft);
• Microeconomic developments;
• Macroeconomic developments;
• National policy uncertainty/instability;
• Disruptive technologies (AI, internet of things, robotisation);
• Government policy, legislative and regulatory changes and uncertainty;
• Labour unrest and strike action.
Solutions
However, it’s not all doom and gloom. The document also investigates available opportunities for improvement.
Palm believes the risk report is the starting point for a national discussion around which solutions to the country’s greatest threats and opportunities can be developed, and that the risk profession has the necessary frameworks, methodologies, tools and information to support the value proposition that this report presents.