For economic development to reduce poverty broadly across any society and be sustainable it must be driven by an active dynamic and growing private sector. Today many countries suffer from the impact of market failures, in particular the lack of successful entrepreneurs and businesses that nourish a thriving independent private sector.

TechnoServe’s mission in South Africa, begun in 2003, is to directly help entrepreneurial men and women in the developing world build businesses that create income, opportunity and economic growth for their families, their communities and their countries.

This undertaking is tightly aligned to South Africa’s new growth path to create 5 million jobs by 2020 and the 2010/2011 Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP2) to diversify and grow exports, improve the trade balance, build long-term industrial capability, grow domestic technology and catalyse skills development.

2011 was declared a year of job creation with research indicating that job growth can be obtained in six priority areas: infrastructure development, agriculture, mining and beneficiation, manufacturing, the green economy and tourism.

The small business sector is a critical component of this job creation drive, with government determined to provide financial and non-financial support to small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs), small-scale agriculture as well as cooperatives. TechnoServe believes business can help achieve this with enterprise development, preferential procurement and corporate social investment and offers business specialist solutions in these areas.

We partner with businesses and industry leaders who have the insight to see the value of people and their communities. We work directly with entrepreneurs and other industry stakeholders in the field, to ensure enterprises thrive on their own and generate continued income for rural communities across South Africa.