South Africa is in desperate need of industrial jobs. Despite that need, a significant fraction of industrial inputs, intermediate goods and consumer products are imported from manufacturers beyond our borders, creating jobs in other countries. Therefore, South Africa must channel current demands toward goods made in the country.
In response to the need for localisation, SEDA, in partnership with Lepharo, is engaged in a three-year programme targeted at sixty SMMEs nationally.

The programme mandate is to capacitate and transform qualifying SMMEs in the engineering and manufacturing sectors into industrialists that will enable import replacement and ensure export promotion. The programme, therefore, provides qualifying SMMEs with an exceptional entrepreneurial business environment that promotes collaboration and innovation and encourages ingenuity as well as the creation of wealth.

Lepharo is at work to bring on board other funding partners, aiming not only to reduce the dependency on SEDA’s fund for this project but to ensure that the SMME ecosystem is established with a wide range of multiple partners with different capabilities, specialities, and support.