23/06/2026
Enterprise and Supplier Development has always been framed as an investment. You allocate budget, select a beneficiary, provide support, and claim the spend.
The proposed 2026 Draft ESD Amendments reframe that investment question. Not what did you spend, but what did you develop. Not who received support, but whether the intervention produced a measurable change in the beneficiary's capability.
For organisations that already run ESD programmes with clear beneficiary rationale, defined outcomes, and documented progress, this is not a departure from current practice. It is an endorsement of it.
For organisations that have treated ESD primarily as a contribution exercise, the proposed amendments introduce a more substantive set of requirements. Programme design, beneficiary selection, outcome tracking, and evidence governance are all areas the proposed framework addresses more explicitly than the current codes.
The amendments are not yet final. But the direction is consistent enough to start evaluating where your current ESD approach stands, and whether your programme structure, evidence file, and beneficiary rationale will hold up against what the proposed framework expects.
BEE Academy is running a practical half-day workshop on 9 July to work through the proposed amendments in detail. What is changing, what the scorecard and verification implications are, and how organisations can use this window to prepare.
Thursday 9 July 2026 | 09h00 to 13h00 | Online | Michal Silverman
Registration link in the first comment below.
For more training information, reach out to Poovan Govender: [email protected]
