As Freedom Month concludes, South Africa reflects on the essence of freedom through the lens of entrepreneurship, where many are not just chasing dreams but creating livelihoods amidst significant challenges.
Image: Freepik
As Freedom Month draws to a close, South Africa returns to a familiar point of reflection.
Not only on what freedom represents, but also on where it is most tangibly experienced in everyday life.
For many, that experience is not found in formal institutions or corporate spaces, but in the act of building something from very little: a business, a livelihood, a way forward.
Entrepreneurship is often framed as a pursuit of ambition and self-determination. In reality, for a significant portion of South Africans, it is more immediate than that.
With unemployment above 32% and youth unemployment hovering around 60%, many are not chasing opportunity as much as creating options where few exist.
Livelihoods are being built in response to an economy that cannot fully absorb its people.
This plays out across townships and urban centres in practical, visible ways. Food prepared and sold from home kitchens.
Hair salons operating from backrooms.
Transport coordinated through informal networks. Goods exchanged through social relationships. The informal sector, employing an estimated 2.5 to 3 million people, is not peripheral to the economy. It is a core part of how it functions.
This form of enterprise does not follow the conventional model of growth and scale. It is immediate, adaptive, and closely tied to local demand, with success often measured day by day. What sustains it is not formal structure, but relationships.
Trust, proximity, and familiarity shape how transactions happen, with communities acting as both markets and support systems.
From an anthropological perspective, this reflects an embedded economy in which economic activity is inseparable from social life.
In South Africa, this dynamic is not incidental. It is structural. Data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor continues to show that a large share of entrepreneurial activity is driven by necessity rather than opportunity. The focus for many is not expansion but continuity.
Technology is beginning to shift parts of this landscape.
Widespread use of mobile and messaging platforms has turned the smartphone into a business tool, enabling marketing, sales, and customer engagement in one place.
It has expanded reach and lowered barriers to entry. But while digital tools open access, they do not resolve the underlying constraints.
Many small businesses remain highly vulnerable. Limited access to finance, infrastructure gaps, and restricted entry into formal markets continue to constrain growth. In highly competitive environments, margins are thin, and small disruptions, whether rising input costs or delayed supply, can quickly destabilise income. The result is an economy defined by effort and movement, but not always by stability.
This is the tension at the centre of South Africa’s entrepreneurial story. The level of activity is high. The resilience is evident. But resilience on its own is not a growth strategy. Too often, the conditions surrounding these businesses prevent them from becoming sustainable or scalable. For many entrepreneurs, business secures the present without building the future.
There are, however, signals of what is possible. According to Brookings, digital tools are proving to be powerful catalysts for helping businesses, including those in South Africa’s informal sector, expand beyond their usual networks and tap into broader markets.
This progress shows that growth is possible, especially when entrepreneurs have access to the right support, infrastructure, and opportunities.
The question is not whether entrepreneurship exists in South Africa. It is visible everywhere. The more pressing question is whether the environment around it is strong enough to support its evolution.
Without meaningful progress in areas such as access to capital, reliable infrastructure, and pathways into formal markets, entrepreneurship will remain largely survivalist in nature.
South Africa cannot rely on resilience as a substitute for an enabling system.
The energy, ideas, and determination are already present at scale.
What remains missing is an environment capable of converting that effort into sustained, inclusive growth.
That is where the next phase of the country’s growth story will be decided.
Tsakani Nkombyane is a programme officer at 22 On Sloane.
Tsakani Nkombyane is a programme officer at 22 On Sloane.
Image: Supplied.
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