Almost R700 million has been allocated to South Africa's Township and Rural Entrepreneurship Programme (TREP) which offers financial support to small businesses in the informal economy. Small, medium, and micro-sized enterprises (SME), which typify the economy of South Africa's densely populated and underdeveloped townships, are estimated to account for at least third of total turnover generated by the country's formal business sector. Despite a lack of regulation and data, the South African government agrees that supporting township economies is vital to the country’s recovery from the coronavirus-induced downturn. To develop and formalize the sector, which faces an uphill battle in accessing capital through formal financial institutions, government founded the Small Business Development Ministry in 2014. Shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic gripped South Africa, the TREP initiative tabled by the Department of Small Business Development was approved and allocated a reprioritized budget of R413 million. The fund, managed by the Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda) and the Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa), offers credit guarantees, loans, grants, and business support services to qualifying township and rural-based enterprises. In the 2020/21 financial year, more than 14,000 entrepreneurs and businesses benefited from various TREP subsidies, according to the Ministry of Small Business Development. A total of R694 million allocated to TREP will be used to support approximately 24,000 township and rural enterprises across eight industry-specific programmes. More than 90% of the total allocation will be used to provide direct financial and operational support to entrepreneurs, while the remainder covers administrative costs.