International Entrepreneurship Policies: A South African Perspective

Recent government policies towards radical economic change in South Africa are creating serious uncertainties with certain sectors of the economy which are increasingly being excluded from government policies and incentives directed at the support and promotion of small business in the country. Small businesses are very important in any economy but are also in need of specific assistance directed at improving their chances for success and survival as important contributors to employment creation and opportunities. Specialist support initiatives such as management training, mentorship, financial assistance and providing subsidized premises are thus of high importance in this regard – but need to be funded externally as most small businesses are not able to afford these services in full. South Africa’s population historically consists of a variety of ethnic groups and have been facing serious racial divisions and confrontations in its past. This was seemingly successfully addressed by 1994 under the leadership of the legendary Nelson Mandela – but circumstances have changed drastically during the past 22 years and the country is, once again, faced with the realities of racial divisions of alarming proportions. In terms of the South African Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, a certain minority population group of small businesses owners are, based on racial lines, excluded from the definition of those businesses who qualify for obtaining contracts with government and are increasingly faced by calls from certain major business pressure groups for their total specific exclusion by law. In addition to this, these small businesses are also increasingly being excluded from doing business with big corporate businesses because of the stringent require-ments of the Codes of Good Practice on Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE). As such, big corporate businesses that are failing to meet with these requirements are, by definition, also excluded from obtaining government contracts. Even small business development support organisations are being exposed to being increasingly excluded from providing their muchneeded services as a result of the stringent business development policies of government. Consequently, a serious amount of knowledge and expertise on the subject of small business development are being lost in the process. This presentation will introduce and explain current initiatives to counteract this loss in valuable expertise and also to avail this knowledge base to the international small business development community at large. It will also, against this background, explain and review the results of a specific initiative directed at guiding school leavers to start businesses of their own with success. The country has the highest rate of youth unemployment globally.