Young, hungry, and shut out: Will South Africa back its entrepreneurs?

South Africa’s youngest citizens are the most ambitious generation the country has ever raised, and the most excluded. Youth unemployment sits at 59.7% for 15–24-year-olds and 40.7% for 25–34-year-olds. We tell young people to “be entrepreneurial.” However, the harder question remains, whether will we fund, mentor and open markets for them or whether will we keep applauding pitch competitions while bank balances stay empty?

As South Africa marks National Entrepreneurs Day and watches global leaders debate growth and inclusion on the G20 stage, we should be candid about the opportunity and the gap. Are we building a reliable pathway from idea to income or exporting our talent to the streets? Do corporate supply chains have room for township micro-enterprises? Will municipalities make trading simpler this year rather than next decade, and will funders back first orders and working capital instead of asking for collateral that no 23-year-old has? South Africa’s challenge is not a shortage of ambition; it is the architecture around youth enterprises. 

That architecture starts with how we define entrepreneurship itself, which is less a of slogan and more of a sequence executed in the messy reality of everyday trading. Capability only works when there is a market, the market only converts when finance is available, and finance only sustains when mentorship strengthens business acumen, pricing and cash-flow discipline. This type of momentum only compounds when these pieces are wired together in a way that shortens the distance from a spark of an idea to a stable income.

We see this every week through our engagements with young people across Mr Price Foundation initiatives, including UpLift, where entrepreneurs work on pricing, delivery, record-keeping, compliance and real routes to demand. Incubation helps when it leads to trading, yet too many founders get stuck moving from one programme to the next without becoming self-sustaining. Our focus is to help them trade, learn and stand on their own, with light-touch support that links them to customers and shortens the distance from idea to income generation, including pilots that place micro-enterprises inside working retail value chains.

When the sequence clicks, the results are tangible. A seamstress becomes a micro-manufacturer once pricing, volumes and delivery windows are clear and a buyer commits to monthly orders. A street-food operator formalises, secures compliance and begins supplying mid-week corporate events rather than treating sales as an occasional weekend boost. A digital reseller secures a starter pack of inventory with patient working capital, learns the difference between turnover and margin and scales deliberately. Entrepreneurship, in these cases, is not a parking bay while waiting for employment to arrive; it is the work itself, creating a wage for the founder and at least one additional salary. Multiply that across thousands and the national picture shifts from abstraction to livelihoods.

As business leaders, we must continuously ask ourselves what it will take for this to be normal rather than exceptional. It starts with demand, placing youth enterprises where customers already buy and letting training reinforce what the market teaches. Finance should move at the pace of small business by funding first orders, blending working capital with small grants, and pairing money with coaching so cash flow holds. Payment terms must protect survival because a 60-day wait can erase hard-won progress. Compliance needs to be predictable and simple, with a single, clear path to permits, trading spaces and basic health and safety. Mentorship should be operational and consistent, focused on pricing, margin, working capital, customer retention and basic digital selling until habits embed. And measurement should track what matters most — sustained trading, repeat customers, stable cash flow and jobs created.

So the question still stands, will South Africa keep talking, or will it back its young entrepreneurs. The answer must show up on the platforms where policy and business intersect. Alongside the G20 sits the B20, where inclusion becomes market access and trade. That is where commitments to entrepreneurship should be formalised and implemented at home, because growth is weak and unemployment is high, and we cannot afford another cycle of intent without delivery.

Part of the work is enabling movement from informal to formal in ways that feel like an upgrade, not a penalty, simple registration, predictable micro-tax rules, portable compliance, and basic e-invoicing that lets small firms sell to large buyers. The other part is opening routes beyond our borders. Many youth-led brands already reach customers online; with export readiness, lighter small-parcel rules and easier digital payments, those sales can cross frontiers as easily as our culture does on social media. If we do that well entrepreneurship becomes a real engine of jobs and earnings, not just a holding pattern.

Mr Price Foundation’s commitment to empower 500 000 young people by 2035 is one contribution to that shift, however the larger test is national. If the B20 and G20 conversations translate into clear steps that expand access, improve enabling ecosystems, simplify trading and widen export pathways, we will have answered our own question. If they do not, we will know we chose talk over traction.

Octavius Phukubye is an executive director of the Mr Price Foundation

*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.

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