Mpopi Khupe is the Managing Director of Zevoli Growth Partners. With over two decades of experience working with MSMEs across South Africa’s diverse geographies, she writes here from direct experience of the gap between how ESD programmes are designed and the realities of the entrepreneurs they are meant to serve.
As ESD professionals, we often speak of small and growing businesses as though they are a homogeneous group. We reference “MSMEs” with broad brush strokes and we support them with the same, or similar, capacity-building programmes and preferential procurement opportunities regardless of where they come from, how far they have come, or what they are up against. This is a fundamental design flaw. And it is one that ESD managers across South Africa need to address urgently, deliberately, and honestly.
The Uncomfortable Truth
In my experience working with MSMEs across South Africa’s urban, township, peri-urban, and rural contexts, these businesses do not enter the development ecosystem with the same level of readiness, resources, or reach. And their differences matter, not as labels, but as starting points.
A township-based entrepreneur is not the same as a scaling urban business. A rural small business faces entirely different realities from one in a peri-urban community. These distinctions affect everything from how an MSME engages with corporate supply chains to their likelihood of succeeding within, or sustaining themselves, after an ESD programme.
This is a call to action for ESD managers to start aligning their development strategies to the lived reality of the MSMEs they serve. Because only when we start where the entrepreneur is can we genuinely move them to where they could and should be.
Unequal Starting Lines: The Geography of Opportunity
Urban MSMEs
An urban small business, based in the same geographical area as corporate head office-driven procurement opportunities and resource-rich networks, often has greater exposure to business support, better infrastructure, and access to more sophisticated capacity-building. These entrepreneurs are frequently already formally registered, digitally literate, and familiar with procurement processes. They typically need help with scaling, market access, and working capital — not foundational literacy.
Township MSMEs
Township MSMEs are more likely to operate within informal or hybrid structures. They are resilient, often deeply embedded in their communities, and driven by survival-linked opportunity. They frequently have limited visibility into corporate supply chains, fewer formal mentors, and minimal experience with operational efficiency systems. Their proximity to opportunity tends to be limited, not by ability, but by access and exposure.
Peri-Urban MSMEs
Peri-urban MSMEs are frequently overlooked. Located on the peripheries of major cities, these businesses are often caught in between: too advanced for the training-focused support common in more remote areas, yet too distant to benefit from the urban-based procurement networks and business life-stage support that their geographic neighbours in the city enjoy.
Rural MSMEs
Rural MSMEs face the deepest layers of exclusion. Often necessity-driven and typically micro in scale, these businesses are geographically disconnected from buyers, exposed to suppressed levels of digital and business management literacy, and rarely benefit from formal support structures. Many have never submitted a bid, applied for funding, or been exposed to a formal contract. They are not lacking ambition. They are lacking proximity to the systems that were not designed with them in mind.
“The uncomfortable truth is that many township, peri-urban, and rural MSMEs are just as capable as their urban counterparts — they simply have not been afforded the same tools, networks, or proximity to opportunity. These are structural inequalities, not deficits of ambition.”
Why This Matters for ESD
ESD programmes are too often judged on scale and speed: how many MSMEs were onboarded, how much was spent with black-owned suppliers, how many contracts were issued. But if the design of these programmes is largely informed by the profile of the urban MSME, those who are already somewhat formalised, digitally literate, and located near anchor clients — they unintentionally continue to exclude the majority.
When we assume MSMEs are the same, we reward those who are already ahead and leave the rest behind. The metrics look good on a report. The actual transformation does not materialise.
Tailoring Programmes to Fit the MSME Profile
For Urban MSMEs
Scale-up support is what urban entrepreneurs most need — help increasing their customer base, refining operational systems, and becoming more investment- and funding-ready. These businesses typically understand basic compliance, can use digital tools, and can articulate their business model. What they require is market linkage, access to capital, and mentorship to deepen competitive positioning.
For Township MSMEs
Programmes targeting township MSMEs should prioritise foundational business skills, guided support toward formalisation, and clear onramps into accessible supply chains in their geographic proximity. These entrepreneurs need mentorship that builds confidence, practical exposure to procurement systems, and strategic partnerships that bridge the distance between them and the corporates operating within their reach.
For Peri-Urban MSMEs
Peri-urban businesses need a middle path: more structured than the support typically offered in rural settings, but more geographically responsive than urban programmes. The focus should be on connecting them to the procurement networks and market access opportunities that their proximity to the city makes theoretically available, but practically inaccessible without deliberate facilitation.
For Rural MSMEs
Rural MSMEs require the most patient, human-centred, and contextually grounded approach. Generic business training rarely yields tangible benefit in these settings. What works is hands-on, contextual business incubation delivered over extended periods — bringing knowledge, tools, and mentorship directly to the entrepreneur, in a language and format that makes sense for their environment. These programmes must leverage local role models, in-person mentorship, and simplified administrative processes. They must be designed around the MSME, not around the implementer’s convenience.
Moving Away From Uniformity Toward Relevance
A pipeline of MSMEs that reflects South Africa’s true economic geography — urban, township, peri-urban, and rural — offers more depth, more resilience, and more genuinely inclusive growth. It expands a company’s real impact, and it strengthens its social licence to operate in communities that are no longer content to sit on the sidelines of development.
Designing ESD programmes based on where an MSME starts, in terms of literacy levels, access to networks, and proximity to opportunity, is not lowering the bar. It is changing the game. It is the difference between an ESD programme that looks successful on paper and one that is actually transformative on the ground.
Success in ESD is not about ticking boxes. It is about relevance. When we meet entrepreneurs where they are, we do not lower the bar — we change the game. Let’s reimagine support that is location-informed, access-aware, and outcome-focused.
