On March 21, when the world observes the United Nation's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination with a series of events and activities worldwide, to remind people of the negative consequences of racial discrimination, South Africa will be remembering a turning point in the country's history. 

On this day 59 years ago, 69 people were killed in Sharpeville, a township in south Gauteng, and 180 others injured. The massacre turned the course of the struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa. The tragic event has had a huge impact on the making of post-apartheid South Africa's constitution and the calendar of the country. The people rose up against apartheid's restrictive laws, high cost of living and poor service delivery. The international community responded to the Sharpeville massacre by isolating the apartheid government in key and strategic global institutions, such as the Commonwealth, and began laying the groundwork for the imposition of economic sanctions. The massacre also led to hardening of positions by the liberation movements in South Africa and their leaders in opposing the apartheid policies. This ultimately triggered the harsh response of the apartheid state to ban all activities of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan African Congress (PAC), the architects of the struggle against apartheid. The leadership of these organizations, including Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, were jailed at Robben Island. 

Fifty-nine years on 

In March, South Africa and the world commemorate 59 years of the Sharpeville massacre. The bigger question on people's minds, however, is how far the country has progressed in achieving the demands made by those who perished and were injured on that fateful day in 1960? Without any doubt, South Africa has made enormous strides in fulfilling the aspiration of Sharpeville demonstrators. As a symbolic move to remind the world of the Sharpeville massacre, the post-apartheid South African Government has declared March 21 every year as Human Rights Day. The South Africa has transformed from maximizing its own security through brutality, as it demonstrated in 1960 at Sharpeville, to a more people-centric service. The Bathu Pele (Sotho for people first) motto informed by the Ubuntu philosophy (Ubuntu is an Nguni Bantu term for humanity), has become the leading norm and value of the post-apartheid South African state. 

Furthermore, South Africa has fundamentally changed for the better since the 1994 democratic elections. The commemoration of the Sharpeville massacre this year also marks the 25th year after Nelson Mandela become the first black president of South Africa. There have been marked improvements in ordinary people's political rights. The South African constitution is perhaps one of the best in the world. 

The greatest challenge, however, for South Africa, is how to translate political freedom into economic freedom. The post-apartheid government embarked on ambitious programs to close the apartheid-created backlogs in health, education, housing and infrastructure among black people. Some of the economic policies enacted are the Reconstruction and Development Program, Growth, Employment, and Redistribution, and the National Development Plan. 

Service delivery challenges 

Chief among the obstacles to service delivery in South Africa is the inability of the economy to grow at the rate that could absorb high levels of unemployment, particularly among the youth. South Africa is the most industrialized country on the African continent, but efforts to grow the economy rapidly have often been hindered by the gloomy global economic climate since 2008. Like most countries in the world, South Africa is battling to overcome a turbulent global economic climate. 

Some of the challenges South Africa confronts is managing high domestic, regional and global expectation. The Sharpeville massacre mobilized South Africans and the international community to fight against apartheid. It is within this context, therefore, that South Africa is expected to attain high economic growth and development to overcome the legacy of apartheid. 

To achieve high levels of development, South Africa should pay great attention to the following areas. 

First, building a highly educated and skilled population must be priority number one for South Africa. The international community ought to be remobilized to assist in educating and skilling the majority of the previously marginalized South Africans. South Africans should go to all corners of the globe to learn skills and knowledge to contribute to the development of the country and the world. 

Particular attention should be paid to the building of requisite skills and knowledge in the field of science and technology to augment the social sciences. 

Second, South Africa is required to improve the health of its population. One of the greatest impacts of apartheid is the lack of good health facilities among the black majority. Attempts to alleviate this challenge have been made; however, more still needs to be achieved. 

Global assistance 

In the past 25 years of democracy, South Africa has relentlessly worked with its immediate neighbors, the African continent and the world to build peace and security. The country has contributed immensely in global multilateral institutions of both the global South and the North. 

One major lesson learned from the Sharpeville massacre is that the international community is critical when it comes to dealing with domestic matters. South Africans defeated apartheid with assistance from the international community. Similarly, challenges confronted by the democratic South Africa require building durable partnerships with various countries of the world. 

China is a classic example showing that strategic partnerships at bilateral and multilateral levels have brought about tangible results. The relationship between South Africa and China goes back to the days of the struggle against apartheid and colonialism. In the same breath, South Africa should attract substantial investments from China and other countries to overcome poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment. 

Sharpeville's commemoration this year reminds us that people-to-people solidarity can overcome any hardship. South Africans endured hardship as demonstrated by the people of Sharpeville in 1960. The sacrifice made by the ordinary people of South Africa to liberate themselves from the yoke of apartheid and colonialism was not in vain. It was during this sacrifice that some South Africans paid the ultimate price to give birth to the democratic South Africa. 

It is therefore the duty for South Africans to open yet another front in the struggle to liberate themselves from poverty, unemployment and underdevelopment. While the battlefield for the struggle against apartheid was waged in front of police stations, the new battlefield in the struggle for economic emancipation will be in kindergartens, classrooms and lecture halls. Education, as stated by Nelson Mandela, plays a critical role in liberating individuals and nations from poverty. 

(The author is the director of the Center for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg)