Entrepreneurship: Unlocking Africa’s Development.
Africa is increasingly taking its place on the global stage as a continent of growth and opportunity. Well, that is only because we have not yet reached the ceiling of innovation and the playing fields are still numerous to explore. Critical challenges remain and here are some interesting statistics about Africa:
- Nigeria is expected to be the 3rd most populous country by 2050 with a population of over 300 million while several other African countries are projected to have more than doubled their population in the same time period.
- Africa, in general, is expected to account for more than half of the world’s population growth between 2015 and 2050.
- 41% of Africans are currently under the age of 15 and 60% of the continent is below the age of 25.
- Currently, 9 out of 10 working African youth are poor or near poor and over the next 10 years, only one in four of Africa’s youth are expected to find a wage job at best.
- The youth population in Africa is expected to double, to over 830 million, by 2050.
- In Nigeria alone, over 40 million additional jobs will be needed between now and 2030.
Africa’s youth population is growing at such an alarming rate that trumps any existing initiatives to adequately cater for them. Something needs to be done to urgently tackle this problem and we believe that putting economic prosperity for the continent in the hands of the African entrepreneur and creating economically viable opportunities is the only sustainable option.
There is the need to create a significant number of jobs for the continent’s booming population, and the need to build a cadre of home-grown business leaders able to access global markets and drive growth in a sustainable and inclusive manner. For this reason, African entrepreneurship is central to Africa’s future prosperity. The biggest business opportunities in the coming decade will be created by Africans who start businesses, generate jobs and wealth, and capture growth opportunities.
Across Africa, necessity is the mother of invention. Reusing and recombining is a way of life and, in many cases, the lack of infrastructure, even old infrastructure, gives us a “clean slate” for new solutions. Responding to these challenges, Africa’s entrepreneurs are contributing a host of cutting-edge products and services, enabling them to leap forward in such fields as mobile and information technology and to develop innovations in agriculture, transportation, healthcare and other vital fields.
But while entrepreneurship is growing rapidly in Africa, entrepreneurs continue to face significant domestic challenges that impede their efforts, including a lack of access to funding, support services, skills training and infrastructure, as well as administrative barriers.
Our fave definition of Entrepreneurship comes from a Harvard Business Review article on the subject where Professor Howard Stevenson defines it as “the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled”. It differs in comparison with the dictionary definition which is “the activity of setting up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit.”
Being an entrepreneur isn’t necessarily about starting companies but about having a mindset that’s driven by the perception of opportunity regardless of the resources currently at one’s disposal. This puts entrepreneurship squarely within reach of everyone, and that’s the mindset that will solve some of Africa’s biggest challenges, especially those associated with our non-correlating population expansion.
Because of Africa’s many challenges, taking responsibility to create the right future seems like the only viable option. For the true entrepreneur, seeing opportunity and harnessing them, often in the midst of challenges, becomes a way of life to secure their future and the futures of several others. Entrepreneurs don’t wait for the government to make investments in infrastructure, in fact as Victor Asemota says;
There is more to be said about experiencing problems firsthand as it often puts us at an advantage when working to craft a solution. An important part of Human-Centered Design, for instance, involves understanding the problem in context thereby leading to highly effective and usable solutions. Also, attempting to solve their own problems is what led a lot of startup founders to eventually launch a company and this is often a good sign that investors look out for in companies they potentially will fund. Thinking of problems this way makes it clear that the best solutions to Africa’s challenges will need to come from within the continent, by entrepreneurs who are able to frame them as opportunities waiting to be harnessed. Being born in Africa isn’t that bad after all.
If entrepreneurship is that important, how then can we ensure that more Africans acquire the entrepreneurship skills required to build Africa’s future?This is our heart at Triift Africa, to groom and support Africa’s next generation of innovators.
We believe the way to sustain this impact lies in rapidly scaling the technology entrepreneurship success stories we’re seeing in Africa by investing in exceptional entrepreneurs who can go on to solve relevant problems, build on and replicate successes across sectors.
Supporting the growth of African innovators will build an environment that identifies and cross-pollinates grassroots innovation across Africa, sparking intra-African trade, and accelerating the success of these business ideas. It will also promote the role of African entrepreneurs within the global innovation network and put African innovators front and centre on the global stage.
African entrepreneurs need the same things — a predictable regulatory environment, reliable and affordable transport and power infrastructure, a healthy, educated and productive talent pool and access to affordable credit. But entrepreneurs are more vulnerable when these things are absent and we are working in our little way to bridge that gap. Countries such as Mauritius, Rwanda and Botswana have shown that it is possible to improve competitiveness swiftly and successfully. The time has come for other governments across Africa to follow their lead and support the development of the next generation of business leaders. African entrepreneurs can change the world; it is time that we give them the platform to do so.
