Barriers to small informal business development and entrepreneurship: The case of the emfuleni region

The nature of being an entrepreneur encapsulates the essence of fully embracing opportunities and taking on new challenges and risks. Informal entrepreneurship is often taken for granted and hardly recognised as being a profession. This study aims at identifying the importance of entrepreneurship in the informal sector and the barriers that these entrepreneurs face on a daily basis in South Africa. As part of the methodology, both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used to analyse and interpret the data. Results from the study indicated that most of the informal entrepreneurs are necessity driven rather than opportunity driven and that some of the main barriers they face are crime, service delivery and lack of vacant land and premises. Possible solutions to these barriers include: providing areas for the entrepreneurs from which to operate and to make funding available for expansion and growth of their businesses.