Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) in rural and peri-urban areas has largely been under-prioritised. With most corporate ESD initiatives focusing on SMMEs in close proximity to metropolitan hubs, many promising small businesses in rural and peri-urban areas have been consistently overlooked. This is not a neutral oversight, it has real consequences. Lower income, fewer employment opportunities, and the urban migration it drives creates a cycle of poverty, underdeveloped infrastructure, and skills erosion in outlying areas that none of us can afford to ignore.
Urban vs. Rural: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters
It is understandable that corporate organisations have historically focused ESD attention on urban SMMEs. They are more easily accessible, more familiar, and often yield faster results. Language is rarely a barrier in urban settings, connectivity is better, and the pool of businesses to choose from — at various maturity levels — is considerably wider.
But this accessibility has come at a cost. Entrepreneurs in peri-urban areas are usually at the very early stages of business development. They take longer to mature than urban counterparts, not because they are less capable, but because they have had fewer opportunities to master their craft, build networks, and gain exposure to procurement systems.
Rural MSMEs face even deeper challenges: geographic disconnection from buyers, suppressed levels of digital and business management literacy, and rare access to formal support. Many have never submitted a bid, applied for funding, or been exposed to a formal contract. For these entrepreneurs, ESD is not just a development tool, it is potentially the first real opportunity they have ever had.
In the absence of deliberate rural ESD investment, entrepreneurs are forced to migrate toward heavily populated urban areas, exacerbating inequality, not reducing it.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Urban-Centric ESD
The uncomfortable truth is this: if the majority of our ESD effort continues to flow toward urban businesses, those that are already somewhat formalised, digitally literate, and located near head offices or anchor clients, we are unintentionally rewarding those who are already ahead and leaving the rest behind.
Urban migration driven by lack of opportunity is not inevitable. It is the predictable consequence of development investment that repeatedly concentrates in the same geography. Squatter camps and deeply underdeveloped township areas do not emerge from nowhere, they are the downstream result of decisions made, or not made, by corporates and ESD practitioners over decades. The only way to balance the scales is to reconsider where our efforts and opportunities must go in order to ensure that those in rural geographies do not have this overwhelming need to migrate toward cities in search of the opportunities that should be coming to them.
A Nuanced Approach, Not a New One
Broadening ESD reach does not mean abandoning what works. It means recognising that the same programme cannot be rolled out identically in every context.
A nuanced approach starts with carefully profiling the geography and the SMMEs within it, their maturity level, their product and service offering, their digital literacy, and their proximity to viable markets. This is not about developing entirely new programmes every time; it is about being open and responsive rather than imposing a predetermined model on communities whose realities are entirely different from those the model was designed around.
It also requires a significant shift in how we define and measure success. A lot can be achieved in a 12-month or six-month programme in an urban setting through meticulous SMME selection and quick-win interventions. In rural settings, more patience is required. Milestones may look different, ensuring digital literacy, building comfort with formal business practices, or achieving the first successful procurement submission. These are not lesser achievements; they are foundational ones.
Annual reporting and KPI frameworks remain achievable and appropriate in non-urban settings, they simply need to reflect the starting point and the distance travelled, not a universal benchmark applied without context.
Where to Start
Unless we start looking at ESD in rural and peri-urban areas differently, we will keep importing programmes that are not fit for purpose in those environments and keep yielding the same frustrating results. All the while, a continued focus on urban ESD will perpetuate the conditions that drive migration, none of which is sustainable.
A successful approach requires:
- Mastering segmentation — taking the time to understand each SMME’s life stage, offering, and development needs before designing a programme
- Designing for the local context — using language, formats, and channels that are appropriate for the environment, not convenient for the implementer
- Creating genuine market access — connecting rural SMMEs to procurement opportunities within realistic reach, not aspirational ones
- Adjusting timelines and metrics — measuring what has genuinely changed for the business and the entrepreneur, not just what was delivered
Balancing the Scales of Opportunity
This is not about splitting focus or abandoning urban ESD programmes. It is about recognising that we have the capacity and the obligation to do more. It can no longer be the case that the majority of corporate ESD effort flows into urban projects by default.
We must make bold, deliberate decisions to redirect attention and investment toward places where the need is greatest and the opportunity for transformative impact is most significant. In doing so, we do not just improve ESD outcomes, we address the direct and indirect socio-economic conditions that drive urban migration, inequality, and community underdevelopment at their root.
Making the circle bigger is not generosity. It is strategy and it is overdue.
