South Africa—Technical Support to the Black Business Supplier Development Programme II (BBSDP)

South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry-commissioned Black Business Supplier Development Programme (BBSDP) was a capacity-building program to address the constraints that many black-owned small enterprises faced in participating in the mainstream economy. Designed as successor to the BBSDP I program, which operated from 2001 to 2009, BBSDP II worked to mainstream small, medium, and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs)—formal and competitive—with good potential for growth. The project fostered linkages between black-owned and managed businesses with large and established corporations, enabling black business to take advantage of South Africa’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) policy and to close the equity gap for businesses requiring finance.

Sample Activities

• Build management information systems to review and report on the existing system with recommendations for improvements where necessary.
• Monitoring and evaluation processes to review and report on the existing system with recommendations for improvements as appropriate.
• Review and report on staff structure and compliment with recommendations for capacity building interventions as necessary.
• Following recruitment and shortlisting by the Department of Trade and Industry, screen and train 50 network facilitators in four provincial centers in skills to identify sound companies and report and recommend interventions.

Select Results

• A report of findings and recommendations covering management information systems, monitoring and evaluation as well as a review and report on staff was submitted and adopted by the Department of Trade and Industry.
• Contributed to the development of the process flow, grant applications documentation, and fee structures for network facilitators.
• Trained 63 network facilitators.