Millions of township entrepreneurs in South Africa's independent economy have built a R1-trillion sector, yet face systemic barriers to formal recognition. A new Standard Bank report highlights that 80% of these businesses remain unregistered, prompting calls for redesigned accountability and respect equal to that given to corporates. Authors from UNDP and Wakanda Food Accelerator argue for parity through community-based systems and tiered regulations.
South Africa's informal economy, rebranded in a recent op-ed as the 'independent economy,' powers a R1-trillion sector that accounts for nearly 19.5% of total employment. The piece, published on 30 October 2025 in Daily Maverick, responds to Standard Bank's inaugural Informal Economy Report, which states that '80% of township businesses are unregistered.' This statistic underscores how language and policy marginalize these entrepreneurs, implying deficiency rather than adaptation to structural barriers like access to internet, documentation, and fear of authorities.
The authors, Maxwell Gomera, resident representative of UNDP South Africa and director of the Africa Sustainable Finance Hub, and Miles Kubheka, founder of the Wakanda Food Accelerator and partner in UNDP's Digital Innovation for Modernising the Informal Economy (DIME) initiative, emphasize that independence is rational. Township businesses self-finance, innovate, and build trust systems outside mainstream support, yet lack accountability mechanisms such as food safety inspections or labor protections, leading to risks like fire hazards in spaza shops.
They critique the regulatory system's binary approach—full compliance or exclusion—and propose solutions: community-based verification through peer networks, tiered thresholds for different business scales, digital tools for inventory and feedback, and linking registration to benefits like credit and markets. The op-ed notes that formal systems, designed for corporates, ignore micro-enterprise realities, and suggests learning from the independent economy's agility and resilience.
Initiatives like DIME test dual-system governance, recognizing two economies need distinct frameworks. The authors argue that progress should measure stability and dignity, not just scaling, and that parity, not mere inclusion, is key to unlocking the sector's potential. A photo referenced shows informal businesses in Soweto on 29 September 2020.