“Freedom is uncomfortable” was the provocation I took to the Laureus Hub Connect Summit stage in Stellenbosch. In this reflection I share why South Africa still works like a club of insiders and outsiders – and why NPOs must stop seeing themselves as small projects and start acting as rule‑shapers.

Too much of development today lives in language, not reality. We speak in systems, pathways, and resilience, but avoid the harder questions of who does the work, with what resources, and what survives when funding ends. “Show me the dust on your shoes” is a call back to grounded practice. A demand for mechanisms over metaphors, and for strategies that can stand in the real world, not just sound good in the room.

At a talk by Prof Steven Friedman I was asked to moderate yesterday, in the build‑up to the CSI Indaba in July, the Prof described South Africa as a country still run by insiders, while a vast number of outsiders live with the consequences but not the voice. That framing stayed with me. Photo credit: Polity.org.za – Steven Friedman interview feature (2017). It's a diagnosis of how our institutions actually work: who sets the rules, who plays the game, and who never makes it