The impact of the South African government's SMME programmes: a ten-year review (1994-2003)

This article critically reviews the impacts of the first ten years of the national government's small, medium and microenterprise (SMME) programmes. In particular, the evaluative focus is in terms of impacts in relation to a range of policy objectives, including poverty alleviation, job creation and the enhancement of national economic growth as part of post-apartheid reconstruction. Key findings relate, inter alia, to the weak state of official data for undertaking impact evaluation; the fact that the SMME economy exhibits only a weak contribution as regards employment creation because most SMMEs do not grow; and, the fact that existing government SMME programmes largely have been biased towards the groups of small and medium-sized enterprises and, to a large extent, have bypassed microenterprises and the informal economy.