Apartheid

Apartheid brought South Africa two advantages; firstly, it proved that the nation could be self-sufficient. If the world didn’t want to deal with South Africa then South Africa would provide what it needed on its own and so it did. Secondly, this left South Africa’s economic grading as far superior to most of Western Europe and the world due to this and the lack of lending that went on when the rest of the world borrowed from the World Bank and now find themselves in massive debt.
South Africa’s ‘A’ grading puts itself on stable ground.