COVID-19 Lessons for Mitigation and Future SME Prospects

Setting up and running a business can be quite risky without the necessary support. This support can emerge from an ecosystem that allows private, public, and social actors to work together in supporting the development of entrepreneurship because entrepreneurs' efforts result in SMEs. African countries struggle with maintaining a sustainable entrepreneurship ecosystem owing to several factors including poor governance systems, dilapidated infrastructure, poor funding systems, and absence of enterprise education. These factors compromise the acclaimed benefits of SMEs, which often experience a short life span. As such, SME performance is considered less than satisfactory. The emergence of COVID-19 has had a further negative impact on this trend. As one can imagine, many businesses today have yet to experience anything close to the upset brought about by the pandemic. There is therefore justification for a concerted interest in how SMEs will bounce back post-COVID-19 in Africa. This chapter focuses on how South African SMEs have fared and their sustainability post COVID-19.