Every time I return home in rural Mpumalanga, Kabokweni, for the holidays, I am reminded that some of South Africa’s most important development lessons are hidden in plain sight. They are not found in boardrooms, strategy documents or annual reports. They are found in the everyday realities of ordinary people and in the communities that have quietly endured decades of economic change, political transition and development intervention. One of the first things I notice whenever I return is a gogo who sells tomatoes outside the local hospital. She has been there for as long as I can remember. Through changing governments, economic downturns, rising food prices and countless development initiatives, she has remained a constant presence. Every morning she arrives with stock. Every day she serves her customers. Every evening she packs up and returns the next day to do it all again.
What fascinates me is not that she sells fruit and vegetables. What fascinates me is that she has managed to remain relevant for years. Hospitals are ecosystems. Patients arrive. Families visit loved ones. Nurses begin and end their shifts. Taxi drivers wait for passengers. Through experience and observation, this gogo recognised an opportunity. She positioned herself where people needed her and built a business around a consistent flow of demand. If you stop and think about it, her achievement is remarkable. Fruit and vegetables are perishable goods. There must have been days when stock spoiled before it could be sold. There must have been weeks when sales were slow and profits were thin. Yet somehow, she adapted, adjusted and endured. Year after year, she remained relevant to the people she serves. The more I reflect on her story, the more I realise that sustainability is not something she talks about—it is something she lives. Without consultants, strategy documents or impact reports, she has built a small enterprise that has survived where many funded initiatives have come and gone.
Yet there is nothing extraordinary about this gogo. If you grew up in a township or rural town like I did, you have encountered people like her throughout your life. They are the backbone of our communities—quietly resilient, consistently present and often overlooked. They adapt to changing circumstances, create value where they can and find ways to remain relevant despite receiving little support. It is this thought that stays with me as I continue driving through my hometown. Not far from the hospital stands an old cinema that once brought life and activity to the community. Nearby are several old industrial buildings known locally as emafemini. These structures were established during the apartheid era to support industries that relied on cheap black labour being located close to production sites. Their origins may be rooted in an unjust system, but they once served an important economic purpose. They created jobs, supported local businesses and generated economic activity within the community.
Today many of these buildings stand abandoned. The machinery is gone. The businesses are gone. The jobs are gone. Yet the structures remain. Every time I pass them, I cannot help but wonder what they could become. Most people see decay when they look at these buildings. I see opportunity. I see dormant assets. I see the foundations of local economic regeneration waiting for someone with the imagination to unlock them. Perhaps the reason I think this way is because I have seen what vision can achieve.
Years ago, large parts of downtown Johannesburg were regarded as symbols of urban decline and to some extent they are still viewed as such. Buildings stood empty. Investment had disappeared. Many people saw little prospect for renewal. Yet Jonathan Liebmann looked at those same buildings and saw something different. He saw possibility. He saw value where others saw neglect. More importantly, he understood that transforming a place could transform an economy. The result was Maboneng. Whatever one’s views on how Maboneng evolved over time, the lesson remains powerful. Maboneng was not created through another bursary programme, another awareness campaign or another community workshop. It was built through vision. It emerged because somebody looked at neglected assets and imagined a different future. It was an exercise in economic regeneration, place-making and ecosystem building. That distinction matters because it highlights what I believe is missing from much of South Africa’s Corporate Social Investment landscape.
A few years ago, FirstRand Foundation announced that it would bring its social investment portfolio in-house, ending its long-standing relationship with Tshikululu Social Investments. At the time, many people within the sector viewed the decision as a bold strategic move. The foundation appeared to be creating an opportunity for greater control, greater alignment and perhaps most importantly, greater innovation. Like many others, I was excited by the possibilities. For a moment, it seemed as though one of Africa’s largest corporate foundations had been given a rare opportunity to start with a blank page. It had the freedom to ask fundamental questions about the future of development in South Africa. It could have examined what was working, what was failing and where the greatest gaps existed. It could have asked whether the country needed more of the same interventions or whether it needed an entirely different approach.
Those are not small questions. In fact, I would argue that they are the most important questions any foundation can ask. What is failing in our communities? What interventions have already been tried repeatedly? Which programmes are oversaturated? What is failing with our approaches? What assets already exist that could be repurposed? How do we create sustainable economic ecosystems rather than temporary interventions? How do we ensure that communities are not merely recipients of development but participants in economic growth? The fact that these questions do not appear to have fundamentally reshaped the foundation’s direction should concern all of us. This is not because literacy programmes lack value. Educational interventions are important. Community development initiatives matter. Nobody should dismiss the positive impact these programmes can have on individual lives.
The concern is something deeper. South Africa does not suffer from a shortage of literacy programmes, bursary schemes or educational interventions. These are among the most heavily funded areas within the CSI sector. Every year, millions of rand are invested into initiatives designed to improve educational outcomes. Yet despite these investments, many communities continue to struggle with unemployment, economic exclusion and declining local economies. Perhaps the challenge is not a lack of funding. Perhaps the challenge is a lack of imagination. Imagine if FirstRand Foundation had used its strategic independence to identify struggling towns across South Africa and commit itself to economic regeneration. Imagine if abandoned cinemas were transformed into centres of excellence for Technical and Vocational Education and Training. Imagine if old emafemini were converted into manufacturing hubs, entrepreneurial incubators, digital innovation centres or community-owned enterprises. Imagine if foundations focused not only on programmes but on creating assets capable of generating value for decades.
Such an approach would not replace literacy initiatives or educational interventions. Rather, it would complement them by creating the economic infrastructure needed to absorb talent, support entrepreneurship and stimulate local growth. After all, what is the purpose of educating young people if the local economy cannot absorb their talent? What is the value of preparing people for opportunity if opportunity itself remains absent? What is the worth of giving someone a bursary if they have to go home to no running water, no electricity and no functioning basic services. These are the questions that should concern all of us. Because the issue is larger than FirstRand Foundation. It speaks to a broader challenge within South Africa’s CSI sector. We have become comfortable funding programmes. We have become less comfortable funding transformation. We measure outputs, attendance figures and beneficiary numbers, yet we rarely ask whether we are fundamentally changing the economic trajectory of communities.
Transformation begins when people stop seeing problems and start seeing possibilities. The lesson of the abandoned cinema and the old emafemini is that assets matter. Infrastructure matters. Place matters. And the lesson of FirstRand Foundation’s move in-house is that strategic independence means very little without strategic imagination. South Africa does not need another generation of programmes that simply manage social challenges. It needs institutions willing to reimagine local economies, repurpose forgotten assets and build ecosystems of opportunity. The promise of strategic independence was never about administrative control. It was about the freedom to think differently and the courage to act on those ideas. For many of us, that remains the opportunity that was missed. Not because the programmes are bad. But because the vision could have been so much bigger.
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