Road to Growth in South Africa

In South Africa, growing your business can be challenging. Formalisation of businesses can be costly, resulting in a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises remaining informal, and the regulatory environment is complex and bureaucratic.  

For women in South Africa, business ownership is even more difficult and often less profitable, with women’s small and medium sized businesses having 33% less turnover than men’s. Additional barriers also hold women back: gender stereotypes undermine women’s business confidence and high levels of unpaid care work carried out by women means they face challenges in finding time to develop their businesses and access support.  

With the support of our partners, DHL Express and the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) Entrepreneurship Development Academy, our seven-week intensive business training programme Road to Growth has been running in South Africa since 2022. 

Road to Growth is one of the Foundation’s five flagship programmes. Our intensive seven-week business management programme equips women entrepreneurs in low and middle income countries with business skills, financial literacy, networks and confidence so they can achieve business growth. The programme also presents the women who participate with networking opportunities within the group, which serves as a highly successful professional and personal support system.

Equipped with new knowledge and skills, Road to Growth alumna in South Africa are able to strengthen their business plans and implement new systems for managing their workload and finances. This makes it easier for them to increase their turnover and start closing South Africa’s gender gap in business profitability. 

So far, 56 South African women entrepreneurs have participated in the programme, which has seen incredible impacts: