PETITION - FROM GATEKEEPERS TO CATALYSTS

A National Call for Development Finance Reform. Youth in Business South Africa (YIBSA) calls on South Africans to support the reform of our development finance system. Too many young and first-generation entrepreneurs with viable businesses, contracts and industrial opportunities remain excluded from funding because they lack substantial collateral, historical balance sheets or inherited capital. The question is simple: What developmental risk should a Development Finance Institution be prepared to take that a commercial bank will not? We are calling on Government, the IDC, NEF, SEDFA and Land Bank to consider reforms that: * introduce catalytic and first-loss funding; * shift from collateral-driven to capability-based financing; * create acquisition finance for emerging industrialists; * significantly improve funding turnaround times; * strengthen DFI co-financing and coordination; and * measure success through jobs, industrial capacity, transformation and enterprises created not loan repayment alone. This is not a call for reckless lending. It is a call for responsible institutions that are prepared to finance productive potential and intelligently share developmental risk. South Africa cannot build tomorrow’s industrialists using only yesterday’s balance sheets. SIGN THE PETITION. Add your voice to the call for a National Development Finance Policy Review. The time has come to move from gatekeepers to catalysts.