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Women entrepreneurs in South Africa continue to encounter financial, institutional, geographical, and gender constraints that hinder business growth. This research explores how these interrelated constraints affect women’s entrepreneurial perspectives and the engagement in the small- and medium-sized enterprise sector. Using an interpretivist qualitative method, data were gathered using an open-ended digital survey with 25 women entrepreneurs operating in various South African settings, reinforced by an analysis of pertinent policy and entrepreneurship-related papers. Thematic analysis identified six interconnected themes: financial exclusion and gendered power; gender norms and patriarchal expectations; geographic marginalisation; network and institutional exclusion; intersectional disadvantage; and resilience and survival-focused strategies. Findings show that women embrace adaptive practices such as personal savings, informal finance and diversification, which allow businesses survival but do not always promote sustained success. These barriers limit access to capital, markets, networks, facilities, and value chains, reducing job growth and business competitiveness. Reflecting on feminist economics, decolonial feminism, and intersectionality, the paper contends that women’s entrepreneurship needs to be regarded as a systemic and structural challenge, instead of a single resilience challenge. The research recommends coordinated, gender-responsive actions that promote accessibility to financing, markets, infrastructure, networks and supportive institutions.

Electronic public participation (EPP) is becoming more popular to enhance traditional public engagement and promote equitable municipal planning. But the degree to which digital engagement provides significant public impact in South Africa’s Integrated Development Planning (IDP) process is not well recognised. This study looks into EPP practices, application challenges, and potential for improving digital engagement in three metropolitan municipalities: Cape Town, Ekurhuleni, and Nelson Mandela Bay. A mixed-methods, multiple-case research design was used. Data were obtained from 588 participants, who included municipal officials, ward councillors, ward committee members, and residents, with 260 formal and 250 informal settlement populations. Quantitative data from local residents were evaluated using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s chi-square tests, whilst interviews and open-ended questions were thematically analysed using Dedoose and combined during interpretation. The findings show that EPP is entrenched unequally across local municipalities and IDP phases. The City of Cape Town and Nelson Mandela Bay made better use of online and blended engagement, whilst Ekurhuleni leaned more mainly on traditional meeting procedures. Across municipalities, digital engagement was focused on information exchange, consultation, analysis, and project-related phases, with less integration into strategic planning, approval, execution, and monitoring. Digital disparity, inadequate institutional capacity, and ineffective feedback systems all hampered meaningful involvement. The evidence, as explained using Arnstein’s Ladder, Smart Governance Theory, and Collaborative Governance Theory, reveals that online access has increased faster than citizen control. As such, this research offers a holistic EPP implementation framework which combines digital and in-person interaction throughout the IDP process, backed up by equitable access, institutional cooperation, feedback, accountability, and joint decision-making avenues. The framework also emphasises the opportunity of EPP to improve stakeholder collaboration and the larger municipal economic landscape.