China’s Progress in Poverty Reduction: What Can South Africa Learn from China to Attain the Poverty Eradication Goal in the Sustainable Development Goals?

During the evaluation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015, it was discovered that there was no country managed to meet the envisioned goal of eradicating poverty. However, it was observed that China is the only country that managed to half its poverty levels. Just like other developing countries, South Africa is one of the countries whose performance in the attainment of the first goal of MDGs was not satisfactory. Through the utilization of secondary data in a qualitative approach, this paper argues that South Africa can perform better if it can learn and follow the strategies used by China to shrink its poverty levels. The study shows that China mostly supports State Owned Enterprises, which make the economy to grow and help in poverty alleviation. For that reason, the study recommends that in order for South Africa to attain the poverty eradication goal by 2030 more SOEs have to be established.