The Mothusi Growth Score

SME-development programmes, lenders, and government agencies share a common operational problem: they read the same businesses through incompatible measurement systems. A programme officer's notes are not a lender's evidence pack. A lender's credit memo is not a donor's impact report. A donor's impact report is not a regulator's compliance file. The information exists, but it does not compose.

The information exists in every SME ecosystem. The constraint is structural: there is no common language for SME state and SME readiness that programmes, funders, governments, and the operators themselves can all read the same way. Programmes report attendance; lenders read application forms; donors read impact narratives; regulators read compliance files. The same underlying business gets re-described four times in four formats, with no shared semantics linking them.

MGS responds to this constraint by providing a structured, common-language framework that operates upstream of the application form and downstream of the impact report. The same growth record reads as evidence for a lender, as maturity progression for a programme, as outcome data for a donor, and as compliance posture for a regulator. The framework does not replace any existing institutional process. It provides a structured layer that those processes can read.

MGS is composed of four interconnected concepts. Each concept is defined formally in the sections that follow. The four concepts together form the substantive content of the framework.

The framework also defines three derived constructs that combine the four primary concepts: the observed-versus-verified tier distinction (§07), the risk signal set (§08), and the finance readiness composite (§09).

A tier is the position of a business on a five-step maturity spectrum. Tiers are defined formally below; transitions between adjacent tiers require specific evidence at specific confidence rungs.

Levers are the dimensions of business operation the framework measures. The framework defines five lever families. Within each family, a tier-specific lever set applies, with rising threshold expectations at higher tiers. Sector overlays (Agriculture, Manufacturing, etc.) extend the standard set with sector-specific levers.

Every signal in a growth record carries an evidence-confidence rung. The rungs are operationally distinct and weighted differently in tier calculation. The framework treats the rung as part of the signal, not as a separate annotation.

Lever weaknesses tend to cluster. The framework names four canonical operational gaps that group related lever weaknesses into named issue clusters. Programmes design interventions against clusters; funders read clusters to understand operator state at a glance.

Backward-looking financials describe what has already happened. Forward-looking risk signals describe what is likely to happen next. The framework defines five canonical forward-looking signals computed from the operator record. Lenders and programme officers read these to anticipate events before they appear in the loan book or the impact report.

Forward-looking risk signals describe trajectory. Adverse event flags describe binary events that have occurred or are observed against the entity, its directors, or its operating record. They are recorded separately from forward-looking risk signals and treated as hard-gate considerations for institutional finance and procurement decisions, not as ordinary operational signals.

• Tax arrears - material outstanding obligations to the tax authority.
• Legal disputes - active litigation material to the entity's operations or solvency.
• Sanctions or watchlist flags - entity, directors, or beneficial owners on a sanctions or watchlist register.
• Payment default - confirmed default on a material credit obligation.
• Director adverse history - director with confirmed adverse history (prior insolvency, disqualification, material fraud).
• Regulatory enforcement - active regulator action against the entity or its principals.
• Material fraud or document integrity concern - verified fraud or integrity failure in submitted documents.

Adverse event flags are surfaced to lenders, programme officers, and procurement teams as part of the institutional readiness picture. They are not aggregated into forward-looking risk scores.

Finance readiness is not a credit score. It is a composite assessment that determines whether the operator is ready for a specific capital pathway, and if not, what is missing. Pathway types include working capital, equipment finance, growth capital, agri-input finance, and offtake-backed finance, among others.

The composite reads the seven factors below. Where readiness is below threshold for a chosen pathway, the framework returns a specific "not ready yet" finding with a prescribed intervention path. This reduces avoidable applications, improves pre-screening quality, and makes missing evidence explicit before a funding request is submitted.

The framework separates what is global from what is local. Tiers and lever families are global: the definition of Operating in §03 applies in any jurisdiction. The evidence schema that supports each lever is local: the documents and live-data sources that count as evidence for tax compliance differ by country, the sector compliance markers differ by sector, and the programme-specific overlays differ by deployment.

Three layers of localisation are supported:

The following three examples illustrate the framework in operation. Operator names and identifying details are illustrative; the patterns reflect real deployment cases.

Worked examples are illustrative. They demonstrate framework operation and do not represent a guarantee of funding approval, tier movement, or programme outcome.

The framework is in active development and has explicit limitations. Acknowledging them is part of the methodology. The following limitations apply to version 0.9.

The framework is intended to be governed by the MGS Methodology Committee. The committee will maintain the framework, version releases, run the public consultation process for amendments, conduct bias and equity review, and liaise with external institutions on framework alignment.

The committee is currently in formation. Intended composition spans five seats: a chair from an academic or policy institution, two seats from development finance or SME finance practice, one seat from an SME ecosystem perspective, and one seat from the technical methodology team. Members serve fixed terms with declared interests.

Methodology amendments are issued as versioned releases. Substantive amendments go through a public consultation period before adoption. The full charter, version history, and consultation process are documented at the methodology committee page.

MGS is an independently developed framework. The methodology is open and citable. Researchers, programme reports, and institutional publications referencing the framework should cite by version and access date.