{"id":6102,"date":"2019-10-23T13:51:10","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T10:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6102"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:37","slug":"opportunity-for-the-african-youth-in-sustainable-entrepreneurship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/10\/23\/opportunity-for-the-african-youth-in-sustainable-entrepreneurship\/","title":{"rendered":"Opportunity For The African Youth In Sustainable Entrepreneurship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When looking for leadership on sustainability, the search typically begins with big businesses like Safaricom and Unilever together with their leaders. The search tends to focus on firms and leaders who have large platforms from which they can announce their commitments to changing products, processes, and people as they execute their vision for sustainability. At times these announcements have been backed up by significant investments in time and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without\nadequate entrepreneurship education and business support, Africa faces a very\nuncertain future. This might sound like a bold statement but looking at these\ninteresting statistics about Africa,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\u00a0Nigeria 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 period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\u00a0Africa, in general, is expected to account for more than half the world\u2019s population growth by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022\n9 out of 10 working African youth are poor or near-poor and over the next 10\nyears, only one in four of Africa’s youth are expected to find a wage job at\nbest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa’s\nyouth population is growing at such an alarming rate that trumps any existing\ninitiatives to adequately cater for them. Something needs to be done urgently\nand I believe entrepreneurship is one of the main sustainable options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nthe challenge to balance people, profit and environment become hard to\nmaintain, the entrepreneur, a visionary and solution provider, is proving the\npower of business and markets. They have the power to not only solve crises but\ncreate a new business model. One that starts with a vision of sustainability at\nthe core and captures an ecosystem of customers along the way that shows a\nsustainable business model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take\nfor example the food sector, one that is rife with consumer scandals and\nresource challenges, where large brands have been largely focused on risk\nmitigation, resource efficiency, and crisis prevention. For traditional\n“big food” players, the challenge is compounded by the size and scale\nof their supply chains plus the speed with which other markets are playing.\nGovernments need to identify, assess and engage tens of thousands of farmers on\none end of the value chain while creating thousands of new distribution points\nthat will deliver the product to the market. There is no time to slow down or\ngo back to do things “right”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Entrepreneurs\nthat once occupied the long trail of the economy, and applauded for being\n“nice” as a result, are now gaining the interest of the traditional\nbusiness as they are now seen as market leaders. Leaders who have created\nproducts and services with loyal ecosystems of consumers, and markets that are\nmoving from niche to scale. Dynamics that are leading to a shift in mindsets\nacross the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumers\nhave begun looking for safe, reliable, high-value products. Employees are now\nwilling to leave comfortable lifestyles and jobs behind for the prospect of\nbuilding a new model for change. Furthermore, governments are now investing\nsignificant time and energy to help solution providers incubate and scale their\nbusiness models while looking for ways to decouple their economies from models\nthat are seen as risky, resource-intensive or destructive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\nshifts are helping entrepreneurs validate their vision and markets, creating\nthe awareness needed to help reach consumers, bringing economies of scale and\nprofit and most importantly bring exit opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nthe African continent transitions towards maturity, where conservation of\n\u201cbalanced growth\u201d replace those of \u201cgrowth at all cost\u201d, the opportunity for\nentrepreneurs to develop new markets for sustainability has never been better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nis an opportunity being supported by consumers who are willing to pay a\npremium. Also, the government now understands that the challenges that have\nplagued them for years have become a threat to their development models hence\nembracing sustainable entrepreneurs is crucial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Entrepreneurship training among the youth| Photo by Action Africa Help International<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If\nentrepreneurship is this important, more African youth need to acquire the\nskills required to build Africa’s future. Having experienced firsthand how our\neducational system fails to prepare graduates for a lifetime of\nproblem-solving, the African youth should be at the forefront to drive\ninitiatives that will help groom and support Africa’s next generation of\ninnovators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does Africa need to keep breathing? Obviously Yes. Therefore, African youth needs to take advantage of sustainable entrepreneurship to close the gaps that exist in the social-economic and environmental growths. Youth have immense greatness within them which needs to be unearthed through opportunities in entrepreneurship. These opportunities will paint Africa as the brightest continent and place it at the peak of success that no other continent has ever been to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When looking for leadership on sustainability, the search typically begins with big businesses like Safaricom and Unilever together with their leaders. The search tends to focus on firms and leaders…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-responsibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}