Why Black Suppliers Matter

Reimagining transformation to make supplier diversity and inclusion possible

By Gary Joseph – CEO of the South African Supplier Diversity Council

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world: governments, business leaders, citizens into unimaginable transformation. No matter who you are, where you are from, what you do, you have not remained untouched or unaffected by this pandemic which has threatened humankind’s existence.

Why Black Suppliers Matter

In South Africa, our apartheid history, our liberation struggles and, eventually, our political freedom has always been centred around restoring the overall human rights and freedoms of Black citizens of our country.  And as we continue to fight against poverty and unemployment that remains the scourge of Black South Africans, the current period of protest against racial injustice around the world and the crippling impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on our economy has laid bare the increasing level of inequality that remains despite more than two and a half decades of transformation policy aimed at addressing this very issue.  For the majority of Black South Africans - we are politically free but remain economically insignificant.