How Can We Transform Youth Innovation, Entrepreneurship in Africa?
Globally, youth unemployment is one of today’s big challenges, Ms Sarah Munyi, Chairperson, Global Business Roundtable, Future Leader Kenya discuss the need for young people to engage in solution oriented dialogues that are accompanied by actions.
What need to be done for real change to happen,
• In Africa, young people represent the fastest growing demographic. Many are already economically active some motivated by necessity to help their families. Youth entrepreneurship offers innovative solutions for economic growth among young people. However, there is need for a better strategy to best support sustainable youth entrepreneurship considering it can be a powerful tool to help fight youth unemployment.
• We need to create a dynamic ecosystem of actors and resources that incubate businesses, facilitate access to capital and business development services, and provide assistance in the form of mentorship and peer-to-peer support. According to Paseka Lesolang, Youth, Innovation, Jobs and Industrialisation Coordinator at Global Water Partnership -Africa, “There is needs for creative funding models to help Africans’ big ideas on adaptation to take off.”
• In major cities like Nairobi and Dakar, young entrepreneurs have demonstrated resourcefulness and inventiveness with a range of enterprises. Given access to the right opportunities, skills, mentors, social networks, technology, and finance, they have enormous potential to be a driving force for economic growth and social progress.
• The World Bank estimates we need 600 million new jobs in the next 10 years just to keep global employment rates constant and according to the International Labor Organization, 73.3 million of the world’s unemployed are young people. Equivelent to about 36 percent.
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