President Jacob Zuma will market South Africa's National Development Plan when he meets other world leaders today at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland.
The plan, endorsed by the ANC last month in Mangaung, is an attempt to redress South Africa's triple blights of unemployment, inequality and poverty.
Zuma will also call for the world's top economies and businesses to invest in South African, and African, infrastructure projects to improve long-term economic growth prospects.
He will also champion the African Union's north-south infrastructure development corridor, running from Durban to Dar-es-Salaam. The Davos trip is being made as South Africa faces severe problems in its mining and farming sectors. Zuma is expected to try to allay fears among business and world leaders in Davos by saying the mining sector was now under control after the killing of mineworkers by the police in Marikana last year.
World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab on Monday said that the risk that the global economy would collapse had not yet passed, despite some renewal of confidence heading into 2013.
"The problems and the risks have not gone away. The world economy might still confront a collapse if very negative constellations [of events] occur," he said.
Markets started strongly this year, with many stock indexes near multi-year highs, and the eurozone no longer seems to be in danger of breaking apart.
But unemployment remains high in many developed economies and the public's faith in business and government leaders is falling.
The euro alliance and Japan are in recession. Politicians in the US are struggling to finalise a budget deal to avoid a default that would cause havoc in financial markets.
Even if rival US politicians reach a deal on the "fiscal cliff", as expected, it might include big government-spending cuts that would hurt the global economy.
The forum this week is expected to draw more than 2500 of the world's financial and political elite. Schwab said economic growth wa s based on optimism among consumers and investors so the challenge wa s for leaders "to give people the confidence to look with more optimism into the future ".
He said a fundamental problem is that the latest economic recovery is largely attributable to "jobless growth" and the early improvement in economies is yet to be felt in the broader jobs market.
A "more socially-minded" entrepreneurship would be needed and young workers entering the job market would need to focus on gaining the skills most in demand, Schwab said.
"We need new ways of thinking. Traditional employment won't solve the issue. We have too many sociologists and psychiatrists and not enough engineers and scientific people."
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