Addis Ababa — On 13 December 2016, the Finance and Private Sector Section of the Macroeconomic policy Division of UNECA organized an Experts Group Meeting at UNCC in Addis Ababa Ethiopia to validate a Study on "Expanding and Strengthening Local Entrepreneurship in Africa". The meeting was attended by researchers, entrepreneurs and private sector representatives, and experts from various regional institutions including AUC, UNECA and the Pan African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PACCI). The study encouraged African policy makers to review and adopt new entrepreneurship priorities to allow entrepreneurs in Africa to play a more active role in the structural transformation processes. Expanding local entrepreneurship was found to be the critical means of delivering a surging, efficient, innovative and job-creating private sector capable of meeting the continent's developmental aspirations.
Using case studies from Botswana, Ghana and Nigeria, the study provided examples of strategic approaches to enhancing local entrepreneurship for structural transformation and the endeavours to distil relevant experiences, particularly those that have been used for private sector development applicable to the industrial sector. The country case studies examined the various undertakings to enhance entrepreneurship, their main challenges and drivers and the institutional and policy dimensions of their implementation. One key challenge facing the three sample countries was found to be how entrepreneurship is defined in policy terms since the definition of entrepreneur essentially determines the orientation of the government support to enterprise development.
Furthermore, the study highlighted the critical role expected from local entrepreneurships in supporting Africa's agenda of industrialization, structural transformation and inclusive growth. The study identified that African entrepreneurs face significant challenges including lack of access to funding, support services, skills training and a sufficiently educated and productive talent pool, and reliable and affordable power infrastructure. A less predictable regulatory environment and other administrative barriers especially related to the small size of enterprise was also found to be a major challenge.
The meeting provided a good opportunity to examine the types of entrepreneurship in the continent; highlighted the main features of enterprise structure and discussed the current discourse on entrepreneurship policy in Africa; outlined the main features of industrial policy as well as the state of entrepreneurship in the three country case studies in order to provide a context for the analysis of entrepreneurship policies in these countries; and drew conclusions as well as policy recommendations.
