It takes something special to rouse a conference crowd from its two-screening, email-scrolling slumber. Plenary sessions and keynote addresses usually close with a polite handclap, but it’s rare to hear real, show-stopping, spontaneous audience applause – especially when it’s a panel discussion and the topic – here we go again – is small business skills development.

But that’s what happened in Hall A of the Century City Convention Centre, during the Africa’s Green Energy Summit (AGES) in late February. Panel facilitator John Roome, formerly of the World Bank, asked how local ecosystems could support SMEs in the informal sector. Anthony Gewer of the National Business Institute was, it’s fair to say, done playing.

‘We have to grow [small] businesses,’ he said. ‘But it’s a process. And we’ve seen that many of these young entrepreneurs are jumping from programme to programme. They get bits of support here, bits of support there, bits of support everywhere. And that’s how they fund their businesses, right? But it’s not growth.’

Gewer continued by highlighting the hurdles entrepreneurs face. ‘They hit stumbling blocks. And technical skills are one of them. Quality. Price. The time it takes to deliver. These are the demands that our larger companies will have in their value chains. We need to bridge that gap, and that’s going to happen locally, and it’s going to require a lot of concentrated energies on how we build ecosystems and support those businesses to grow and get them closer to where the opportunities are emerging.’

Cue the applause. The sense at AGES 2026 was that delegates were tired of talk shops. Whether in the green economy or in any other business sector, Gewer’s mic-drop moment captured what many frustrated SMEs, industry associations and even corporates have been feeling for some time. Small businesses need funding and skills development. More than that, they need supportive ecosystems and enabling environments.

For small businesses, creeping from grant to grant, loan to loan, funding injection to funding injection, is not sustainable – nor is it real growth. What small businesses need, Gewer argued, is a space to sell their product, service or solution. Corporates – many of whom are quite happy to poach, headhunt or hire the talent that only small enterprises can nurture – are uniquely positioned to create that space.

‘The most valuable thing a larger business can offer an SME is not a cheque,’ says Adelaide McKelvey, executive director of micro-business platform Helplink. ‘It is access. Access to supply chains, to procurement processes, to networks, to market intelligence that a small business simply cannot reach on its own.’

This is how corporate SA can – and, in many cases, does – help the country’s SMEs to grow and drive economic transformation. This involves rethinking enterprise and supplier development (ESD) by shifting from once-off funding and isolated interventions to sustained mentorship and development programmes that gradually build SMEs’ operational capability.

‘They can also open up mentorship channels, introduce SMEs to their professional networks and provide feedback on supplier readiness. In some cases, they offer preferential payment terms that allow small businesses to manage cash flow while they scale,’ says McKelvey. ‘The shift is from viewing SME support as a compliance obligation to seeing it as an investment in a more capable, reliable supply base.’

In fairness, the ‘compliance obligation’ enables big business to support small business, while boosting their own broad-based black economic empowerment scorecard by allocating ESD to the file marked ‘ESG’. The problem, as both Gewer and McKelvey point out, is that compliance tends to reward short-termism over lasting, long-term support.

Patricia Pillay, CEO of producer responsibility organisation Polyco, which is active in the circular economy space, says there is significant potential for innovation and entrepreneurial growth in the recycling value chain, but realising that potential requires sustained commitment. ‘Once-off interventions can serve as a catalyst for change, but they rarely impact the long-term trajectory of a business. It is the ongoing relationship of checking in, course-correcting, opening new doors as the enterprise grows, which makes the real difference.’

As Gewer emphasised at the AGES event, the biggest gap is market access. ‘If there aren’t opportunities for market access, there aren’t opportunities for growth,’ he said.

Market access is a challenge compounded by limited access to funding. However, some experts argue that the central problem is not the availability of money. For instance, Muzi Mhlambi, senior manager at the Banking Association South Africa, recently wrote in Business Day, citing the South African MSME Access to Finance 2025 report, that there is no shortage of funding.

‘There is enough capital in South Africa. The supply and demand mismatch for micro, small, and medium enterprise funding is not owing to a lack of money, but where it is targeted.’

This speaks to what McKelvey calls ‘a harder conversation that needs to happen’. She points out that most corporate ESD and enterprise development spending is directed towards mid-sized SMEs – those with turnover between R10 million and R50 million.

‘The reason is straightforward,’ she says. ‘It is lower risk, easier to administer, and still earns the compliance points. But this concentrates support in a segment that, while important, is not where South Africa’s most urgent economic challenge [lies]. The businesses that need the most support and that represent the greatest potential for job creation and economic inclusion are at the bottom of the pyramid: micro enterprises with turnover below R2 million. If corporates genuinely want to move the needle on economic growth – not just manage their scorecard – this is the conversation worth having.’

Mhlambi agrees. ‘The consistent identification of “access to finance” as the core issue reveals the complex, multi-faceted nature of this problem. The problem is not a dry well that needs refilling. It is a broken plumbing system with multiple leaks and blockages that requires holistic repair. The focus must shift from increasing the volume of money to improving the flow and accessibility of money.’

The problems of that ‘broken plumbing system’ extend to ESD and market access: SMEs are introduced to corporates, pilot projects are started, and programmes boast impressive uptake numbers. However, these activities often fail to result in long-term business relationships or sustainable opportunities for SMEs, highlighting the gap between initial engagement and actual market access.

Zemvelo Ndlovu, marketing strategist and ESD specialist at Brandscapers Africa, shows this disconnect in a recent opinion piece. ‘In reality, most small businesses are showcased without being structurally integrated into procurement pipelines,’ she writes. ‘Contracts are often short-term, risk is pushed onto SMEs, and repeat business is rarely guaranteed. Without predictable revenue streams, even the most capable SME struggles to survive, let alone scale. Many SMEs that show promise end up falling off the map once funding cycles or pilot periods end. This creates a pattern where visibility exists, but meaningful growth remains elusive.’

That then creates a cascading effect, where banks and investors regard those small businesses as high risk because their performance is episodic and under-documented. The SMEs, then, remain dependent on grants or sporadic corporate work for survival – and growth stagnates.

‘The visibility ESD provides is real, but sustainability is rare,’ Ndlovu writes. ‘Money flows into businesses, but it does not create enterprises that can stand on their own. The result is an ESD ecosystem that produces short-term impact and long-term dependency, which is exactly the opposite of what transformation programmes are meant to achieve.’

Rowen Pillai, CEO at investment firm LeanTechnovations, agrees. ‘For too long, the ESD ecosystem has suffered from a reputation of being a tick-box exercise,’ he says, pointing to research from the Gordon Institute of Business Science that suggests that many corporate programmes are short-term and tactical, and fail to generate real impact or integrate SMEs strategically into supply chains.

‘We often see corporations sending beneficiaries on generic business courses without providing the direct technical or financial support necessary for them to stand on their own two feet,’ he adds.

‘What SMEs actually need is not more information,’ says McKelvey. ‘They need to become credible enough to win in formal markets and then operationally strong enough to hold that position once they get there.’

Polyco’s Pillay advocates an enterprise development approach grounded in patience and care, ‘allowing us to meet entrepreneurs where they are. In our experience, many small enterprises in the recycling sector are grassroots operations. These operations are often informal, resource-constrained and navigate fragmented and volatile value chains. For these businesses, the immediate priority is not yet winning in formal markets. It is becoming stable, commercially viable and dignified at a basic operational level first.’

The argument goes beyond supporting small businesses. It’s also about broader market development. After all, McKelvey says, SMEs that grow become more sophisticated buyers, employers and economic contributors.

‘A corporate’s supply chain is only as strong as its weakest supplier,’ she says. ‘When SMEs in that chain are under-capacitated, the risks – missed deadlines, poor quality, compliance failures – flow upward. Investing in SME capability is ultimately an investment in supply chain resilience.’

No wonder the AGES 2026 audience – representatives of big business, small business, investors, governments, NGOs and more – stopped to applaud Gewer’s remarks. Small business development is not about funding. It’s about access.

Mark van Dijk
Image: iStock