National Treasury, with its partners, has launched the third phase of the Southern Africa – Towards Inclusive Economic Growth (SA-TIDE) programme, strengthening its commitment to evidence-based policy making.
This new phase emphasizes collaboration between researchers and policy makers to co-produce insights that inform fiscal and economic strategies with the goal of supporting inclusive growth, strengthening institutional capacity and improving the effectiveness of policy interventions in South Africa and the wider region.
“At its core, SA-Tide is based on a simple and yet powerful principle – good policy must be based on reliable evidence. Better evidence leads to better policy, and better policy leads to better outcomes for our people,” Deputy Finance Minister David Masondo said in Pretoria on Tuesday, 24 March 2026.
SA-TIDE is a research-policy partnership between the National Treasury, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the United Nations University World Development Economics Research Institute (UNU-WIDER), with financial support from the European Union and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the United Kingdom.
bridging policy gaps
Now entering its third phase, the program works to bridge the gap between research and policy implementation by embedding evidence directly within government systems and building analytical capacity.
Phase II has generated substantial evidence that directly informs South Africa's policy priorities.
Over 130 research papers have been published, of which 65% are authored or co-authored by South African researchers and 63% feature women as authors or co-authors.
More than 200 participants, half of whom are from government, have been trained in advanced economic modeling, econometrics, spatial analysis and data science, building skills that will last beyond the program lifecycle.
“Research is not a luxury, if anything, it is needed more than ever. In times of uncertainty, bad decisions become too costly, short-term thinking becomes too attractive, and political pressure can overrule careful thinking.
Patricia Justino, incoming director of UNU-WIDER, said, “SA-TIDE has created what is very rare: trust between research and policy making. That trust is the foundation on which Phase III will be built.”
power of data
A defining achievement of Phase II has been the growth of the National Treasury Secure Data Facility (NTSDF), one of the first institutions in the Global South to aggregate anonymized administrative tax data.
The facility has supported more than 65 researchers in the last year alone and has directly informed government policy outputs.
It is increasingly being recognized as a model for responsible administrative data use, with many countries already trying to replicate this approach.
SARS Deputy Commissioner Johnstone Makhubu reaffirmed SARS' strategic commitment to data-driven policy making.
Makhubu said, “We see tax administration data as the lifeblood of research and economic policy design. We collect data with an end in mind, not only for tax administration purposes, but also for research.”
deepening strategic focus
Research under SA-Tide has addressed six key areas of South Africa's development agenda: enterprise development for job creation and growth; mobilizing public revenues for inclusive growth; dynamics of structural change, labor markets and inequality; macro-fiscal analysis and policy modeling; food, energy and water in the context of climate change; and improved implementation and delivery.
The third phase, running from 2026 to 2029, will consolidate and extend these gains. It will focus on a set of core priorities, including strengthening the link between research and policy implementation, expanding access to administrative datasets and building state capacity through training, skills development and greater integration of research within government.
Phase III also introduces a new emphasis on public expenditure efficiency, reflecting the reality that, in a constrained fiscal environment, the question is no longer just how much the state spends, but how effectively it spends.
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