The need to improve the South African government's SME intervention policies: some empirical evidence

This paper will initially provide an overview of intervention policies used by governments in developed and developing countries to stimulate the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This general overview will be followed by a review of the literature on the South African government's intervention policies in particular, and comparison made to international intervention trends. The literature review will be followed by an explanation of the research methodology to empirically determine the need for changes to improve the intervention policies of the South African government. In the final instance the findings, recommendations on how to improve the intervention policies, limitations and suggestions for further research will be presented.