International Women in Engineering Day was celebrated on 23 June. In an opinion piece for the Weekend Argus, Prof Sara Grobbelaar of the Department of Industrial Engineering argued that South Africa needs a more coordinated, long-term approach to development—the Mother of all In(ter)ventions—that connects effort, builds capability, accompanies people and enterprises from potential to prosperity, and creates the conditions for shared prosperity at a scale that will make a difference.

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Sara Grobbelaar*

On International Women in Engineering Day (23 June), I argue that South Africa needs a systems- and lifecycle-based approach to development—one that we can call the Mother of all In(ter)ventions.

There is an old saying that necessity is the mother of invention. At its heart lies a profound truth: when circumstances become impossible to ignore, we are forced to innovate, experiment, and build new systems. South Africa has been in such a moment for quite some time now. 

In the first quarter in 2026, national unemployment stood at 32,7%, with those aged 15-24 facing the highest unemployment rate at 60,9%, followed by those aged 25-34 at 40,6%. Economic growth remains sluggish, many communities continue to experience severe service delivery failures, and technologies such as artificial intelligence are rapidly reshaping how economies create value and opportunity.

The Mother of all In(ter)ventions is a metaphor that reflects what we should strive for in innovative development programmes. No mother gets everything right. Yet mothers continue to invest in the future. They nurture potential before results are visible. They adapt when circumstances change. They coordinate support from family, schools, and communities. Most importantly, they understand that development is not an event but a lifelong process.

South Africa's challenges will not be solved through isolated projects or fragmented support. We need interventions that build capability in our people over time rather than in short bursts. The Mother of all In(ter)ventions is a call for a more coordinated, long-term approach to development—one that connects effort, builds capability, accompanies people and enterprises from potential to prosperity, and creates the conditions for shared prosperity at a scale that will make a difference.

Unlocking community innovation and local knowledge

The Mother of Invention is already hard at work in South Africa's communities. Across townships, informal settlements, and rural areas, people innovate every day to solve problems, create livelihoods, and improve local conditions. The 2021-2022 Innovation in the South African Informal Sector (IIS) Survey by the Human Sciences Research Council's CeSTII in Philippi (a township on the Cape Flats) identified 1,515 informal businesses and surveyed 1,008 entrepreneurs. More than half (57.2%) started their businesses because of unemployment, while fewer than half (46.2%) had completed school.

These entrepreneurs remain largely disconnected from the wider innovation ecosystem. While many collaborate informally to access information, customers, and markets, 86% reported no interaction with universities, research organisations, NGOs, trade associations, or government support structures, and fewer than 1% had access to formal incubation programmes. Most rely on family, friends, stokvels, and informal lenders for support. These innovators are creating opportunities where few exist, often while supporting extended families and coping with highly uncertain incomes. Yet many remain trapped in necessity-driven entrepreneurship, surviving from crisis to crisis rather than building businesses that generate sustained growth, livelihoods, and employment.

The challenge is not a lack of innovation, but how to connect grassroots innovation with the support needed to grow and create lasting impact.

Platforms

South Africa already channels substantial investment into township economies through a combination of public spending, corporate investment, development finance, and community-based capital. While precise figures are difficult to determine due to the scale of informal economic activity, available evidence suggests that annual capital flows amount to tens of billions of rands. Government programmes alone contribute several billion rand each year through initiatives such as the Township and Rural Entrepreneurship Programme,  which has been allocated R710 million for 2026/27.

Communities themselves mobilise considerable financial resources through 800,000 stokvels comprising more than 11 million members. Stokvels have evolved beyond their traditional role as savings groups for groceries and funerals and are increasingly being used as investment platforms. An estimated R50–R60 billion circulates through stokvels annually. Financial providers and digital stokvel platforms now offer products aimed at wealth creation and long-term investment.

Corporate investment further expands this pool through enterprise and supplier development programmes, retail property developments, township logistics infrastructure, and venture capital investments. South African companies collectively invested an estimated R13.1 billion in Corporate Social Investment in 2025, with an increasing priority on investing in innovative, scalable impact projects, especially those with a clear theory of change, alignment with Environmental, Social and Governance principles and co-funding and implementation with other transformation initiatives. 

Coordination

There are encouraging signs that South Africa is beginning to move beyond a patchwork of projects towards more systemic, place-based approaches to development. A growing number of initiatives recognise that sustainable change requires coordinated ecosystems rather than isolated interventions. 

For example, the Township Spark Programme uses innovative blended-finance and guarantee mechanisms to crowd private-sector investment into underserved township economies, while the Social Employment Fund coordinates the efforts of 37 Strategic Implementing Partners working across areas such as education, health, food security, digital inclusion, environmental restoration, and community development. 

Similarly, Ranyaka Community Transformation demonstrates how local enterprise ecosystems can be built through incubation hubs, business support, mentoring, market access initiatives, and connections to funders and corporate supply chains.

Although these initiatives differ in focus, they share a common principle: innovation and development work best when people, institutions, resources, and opportunities are deliberately connected. Rather than expecting entrepreneurs and communities to navigate fragmented support systems alone, these platforms enable knowledge, capital, relationships, and opportunities to flow. They offer a glimpse of what the Mother of all In(ter)ventions could achieve.

Shared prosperity

South Africa possesses more assets than we often acknowledge—schools, universities, community organisations, skilled professionals, entrepreneurs, and millions of young people whose potential remains underutilised. It already possesses remarkable reserves of innovation, entrepreneurial energy, and community knowledge. The challenge is connecting these assets to the institutions, markets, and support systems that can help them flourish.

Support for innovators and entrepreneurs cannot come in isolated bursts of funding, training, or mentoring. It must accompany them throughout their life cycle—from idea generation and start-up, through growth and scaling, to long-term sustainability.

The success of the Mother of all In(ter)ventions will not be measured by the number of programmes launched or the amount invested, but by whether we create ecosystems that turn knowledge into capability, capability into opportunity, and opportunity into shared prosperity.

*Sara Grobbelaar is a Professor of Industrial Engineering at Stellenbosch University. She acknowledges the use of OpenAI's GPT-5.5 to improve the flow, readability, and clarity of this article. All opinions, interpretations, and conclusions expressed remain those of the author.