4. Remaining challengesWhile a great deal of progress has been made in government’s efforts to promote small

enterprises, some important challenges are still to be resolved.

The Review of Ten Years of Small Business Support in South Africa 1994 to 2004 identifies the

following issues that need attention:

• The great diversity of small enterprises and their needs requires greater recognition

• Far more knowledge and understanding is required across the full range of support

suppliers and the support each one provides, as well as to whom and under what

conditions

• Access to support services must be comparable in urban/metropolitan and rural areas.

• Greater balance is required between the cost, reach and impact of support interventions,

in particular, where public funds are concerned

• Many support programmes only tackle the symptoms of deeper-lying problems, thereby

preventing a more systematic approach to those structural issues (e.g. access to finance

for black entrepreneurs)

• Lack of clarity about the roles and responsibilities of different levels of the public sector

makes their efforts uncoordinated and less effective

• Inadequate representation of particular small-enterprise interest groups in existing or

evolving business associations weakens feedback on specific needs

• Substantive differences still exist in the capacity to absorb small-enterprise support

programmes in the different provinces and regions of the country and in different sectors

• There is insufficient interaction between small enterprise support programmes and other

thrusts of the Government’s socio-economic development support

• The Centre for the Promotion of Small Business (the dti chief directorate) has been

unable to co-ordinate all the support programmes developed by different national

government departments

• Thorough and regular monitoring and evaluation of the evolving support processes has

been inadequate.