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Sustaining Heritage Begins With Supporting Local Businesses

22Sep

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South Africa News

Sustaining Heritage Begins With Supporting Local Businesses

By Catherine Wijnberg, Chief Executive Officer of Fetola Heritage Day is an important date in the South African calendar. It is an opportunity to celebrate the cultural wealth of our people; a day on which we honour the vibrant diversity that forms our Rainbow Nation. Yet, amid a backdrop of rolling blackouts, economic contraction, and record-setting inflation, it’s not surprising that many South Africans do not feel like celebrating. Heritage Day is the ideal opportunity to galvanise support for the success of our people – and more importantly, their businesses. This begins with inspiring a return to ‘buy local’. Historically, South Africans have always shown a preference for locally produced goods and services. This sentiment towards ‘Local is Lekker’ comes as South African consumers...

Why the sector is fertile ground for South African entrepreneurs

By Catherine Wijnberg, CEO of Fetola South Africa needs entrepreneurs to reverse our shrinking economy and high unemployment rate. And while they face numerous barriers in almost every sector, there is one industry that offers them the key to success: The circular economy. Only about 1% of micro-enterprises[1] in South Africa, starting with one to five employees, will grow to employ more than 10 people. This means most entrepreneurs will face so many barriers they will make little meaningful difference to unemployment in the county. But this is not the case within the circular economy. The circular economy consists of businesses that focus on eliminating waste. Circular thinking goes beyond the reduce, reuse and recycle focus in the green sector to design out waste altogether. It promo...

Getting SA’s Social Entrepreneurs Investment Ready

The impact investing market now stands at around US$715 billion globally and this figure is climbing steadily[i].What’s more, 43% of impact investors have funds allocated to Africa, with 52% of investors planning to increase their African investment over the next five years[ii]. With South Africa being the largest market for impact investing within Southern Africa[iii], are our social entrepreneurs ready for this investment? Ashleigh Sibanda, Programme Manager: Business Incubation at business growth specialists Fetola explains that investment readiness refers to the capacity of an enterprise to understand and meet the specific needs and expectations of investors. “While there are thousands of social enterprises in the country, not all of them possess this. In fact, the World Bank cites th...