{"id":1230,"date":"2015-07-29T12:00:36","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=1230"},"modified":"2016-10-27T15:13:24","modified_gmt":"2016-10-27T14:13:24","slug":"drivers-of-african-entrepreneurship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/07\/29\/drivers-of-african-entrepreneurship\/","title":{"rendered":"Drivers of African Entrepreneurship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span lang=\"en-US\"><strong>Entrepreneurship in Africa is in the spotlight these days.<\/strong> Obama\u2019s participation at the <strong>Global Entrepreneurship Summit (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gistnetwork.org\/events\/global-entrepreneurship-summit-2015\" target=\"_blank\">GES<\/a>)<\/strong> in Nairobi last weekend brought it to the forefront. I could feel the buzz when I travelled to Nairobi last month. The city was getting ready for the Presidential visit. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"en-US\">The GES provides an opportunity for emerging entrepreneurs to connect with leaders from business, international organizations, and governments looking to support them. It was the first time the meeting took place in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1233\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1233\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/07\/entrep.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1233\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/07\/entrep-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Facilities of Nairobi\u2019s entrepreneurial company Home Boyz\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/07\/entrep-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/07\/entrep-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/files\/2015\/07\/entrep-500x281.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1233\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Facilities of Nairobi\u2019s entrepreneurial company Home Boyz<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span lang=\"en-US\">Some highlights from the meeting according to several reports as well as my own comments on the issues: <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span lang=\"en-US\"><strong>The scarcity of employment opportunities faced by the booming young population in SSA<\/strong> is driving entrepreneurial self-employment \u2013 After a few weeks in SSA, two things were apparent to me: <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/03\/19\/a-young-population-a-youthful-mentality\/\" target=\"_blank\">Africa is young<\/a>, and the people are full of <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2015\/01\/14\/a-new-era-of-indigenous-entrepreneurship\/\" target=\"_blank\">entrepreneurial energy<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"en-US\"><strong>A lack of resources is an important obstacle to entrepreneurship in SSA<\/strong> \u2013 The cost of capital is prohibitive: 25% is not unheard of as the interest rate in countries such as Nigeria or Kenya. Add to this the need to provide a record to the financial institutions. <strong>Microfinance institutions<\/strong> can play an important role \u2013 but in some cases their interest rates are not lower than those of traditional banks. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"en-US\">Partnerships are critical to entrepreneurial success in SSA \u2013 Actually, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=631\" target=\"_blank\">personal networks matter a lot in Africa<\/a><\/strong>. More so than in other locations: given the scarcity of public information, a trusted source that provides sensitive information is critical. In this context, <strong>networking associations such as <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=501\" target=\"_blank\">Africa 2.0<\/a> play a very important role. <\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"en-US\">Fostering entrepreneurship can prompt the development of new products and services, create jobs for workers, and anchor communities and families worldwide \u2013 not that this is new, but it\u2019s good to remind ourselves of this. At a time when many entrepreneurs in the Western world are driven by a desire to hit the market, sell their business, and become rich, it is healthy to remember that business is something more than shareholder value creation. <a class=\"inline-twitter-link inline-tweet-click\" href=\"#\" onclick=\"inline_tweet_sharer_open_win('https:\\\/\\\/twitter.com\\\/intent\\\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblog.iese.edu%2Fafrica%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F1230%2F&text=+Job+creation+is+critical+if+we+want+our+societies+to+prosper%2C+and+it%3Fs+an+important+driver+for+many+SSA+entrepreneurs.+');\" title=\"Tweet This!\"> Job creation is critical if we want our societies to prosper, and it\u2019s an important driver for many SSA entrepreneurs. <span class=\"non-dashicons\"> <\/span><\/a>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span lang=\"en-US\">Any experience with entrepreneurial activities in SSA that you would like to share?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Entrepreneurship in Africa is in the spotlight these days. Obama\u2019s participation at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Nairobi last weekend brought it to the forefront. I could feel the buzz when I travelled to Nairobi last month. The city was getting ready for the Presidential visit. The GES provides an opportunity for emerging entrepreneurs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":1233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[100402,585,157,100400,27602,86281,171,1080,60723,17080],"class_list":["post-1230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategy","tag-africa-2-0","tag-employment","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-global-entrepreneurship-summit","tag-microfinance","tag-nairobi","tag-networks","tag-nigeria","tag-obama","tag-resources","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1654"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1230"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1243,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1230\/revisions\/1243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}