Let’s build from the bottom

Research we did for a local special economic zone revealed that South African companies tended to have a greater integration with the host city compared to their foreign counterparts. That’s in line with research showing that foreign investors tended to go into new countries with their pre-exiting global supply chain networks.

What follows from this is the idea that spending more resources developing local businesses can help achieve greater levels of growth than we realise if our lackluster approach is anything to go by.

To really excel in growing local enterprises, we must build from the bottom. There is a critical mass of small business people who operate businesses that are undermined by the average development planner in SA. As such their potential to reach greater levels of growth is undermined. This country is so prideful and arrogant that an unemployed graduate receives greater honour than elderly women selling goods in main hubs in the country who are sustaining their families through their initiatives.

Women and men across the country run businesses than have not only sustained them and their families but have also enabled them to send their children to schools and higher education institutions.

To nurture these kinds of businesses, epistemic humility and self respect is required. Racial capitalism’s destructive impact among black people has been driving the false idea that all that they need to succeed is everywhere else but within. As such, black people’s businesses are less likely to succeed the founding generation as parents take their children to school precisely to leave the business so they can find something better, a profession, to progress in life.

All that may be needed to support these businesses is to instill a growth focus. I explore more in the next post