Entrepreneurship plays an important role in fostering personal development, communal progress and even national development. It is well recognized that entrepreneurship is one of the most important inputs in economic and capital advancement.
Taking this fact into account, The Ethiopian Herald approached Mohammed Yasin, who graduated in Agro-economics from Dilla University, to solicit a piece of information revolving around the nexus between entrepreneurship and economic progress.
He said, "An entrepreneur can be regarded as a person who has the initiative skill and motivation to set up a business or enterprise of their own and who always looks for high achievements. They are the catalyst for social change and works for the common good. The number and competence of entrepreneurs affect the economic growth of the country, too."
According to him, an entrepreneur looks for opportunities, identifies and seizes them mainly for economic gains. An action-oriented entrepreneur is a highly calculative individual who is always willing to undertake risks in order to achieve their goalmouths.
No doubt, he uttered entrepreneurship is a key chauffeur of economic growth because it creates jobs, introduces new products and services, and increases competition.
Asked about how entrepreneurship does contribute to economic progress and prosperity as well, he stated that entrepreneurship helps citizens create jobs for themselves and others, introduce new products, methods, and production processes, enables people to increase competition and competitiveness via accelerating structural changes and contributing a lot to knowledge spillovers as well as increasing the variety of businesses.
Local community in a given country, referring to Ethiopia in this context, has to be turned into entrepreneurship with a view to providing engine for socio-economic advancement, market competitiveness continentally and globally as well as creating a number of jobs for respective citizenry, he underlined.
As to him, entrepreneurship has emerged as a bona fide instrument of growth policy as it provides a crucial mechanism in the process of economic growth by serving as a conduit for knowledge spillovers among/between generations.
"By penetrating the knowledge filter and facilitating the spillover of knowledge that might otherwise not be commercialized, entrepreneurship provides the missing link to economic growth, individual progress and communal change at the end of the day."
The entrepreneur who is a business leader looks for ideas and puts them into effect in fostering economic growth and development. Entrepreneurship is one of the most important inputs in the economic development of a country. The entrepreneur acts as a trigger head to give spark to economic activities by their entrepreneurial decisions.
Not only do citizens engage in the science of entrepreneurship play a pivotal role in the development of industrial sector of a country but they also make a decisive contribution towards fostering the development of farm and service sector. Entrepreneurs promote capital formation by mobilizing the idle savings of public, creating large-scale employment opportunities--providing immediate large-scale employment to the unemployed which is a chronic problem of developing nations like ours, he underscored.
He further stated that when enterprises grow, they could be instrumental in providing direct and indirect employment opportunities to a number of citizenry. In this way, entrepreneurs play an effective role in reducing the problem of unemployment in the country which in turn clears the path towards economic development of the nation and paving appealing avenue for fostering comfortable communal livelihood.
The growth of industries and business in various areas of the nation lead to a large number of public benefits like road transport, health, education, entertainment, etc. In simple terms, entrepreneurship is of paramount importance in redressing the problems from which a large number of citizens are suffering, which in turn will help reduce the concentration of economic power amongst the population.
In so doing, it would be possible to stimulate equitable redistribution of wealth and income in the interest of the country to more people and geographic areas, thus giving benefit to larger sections of the society with a view to coming up with meaningful socio-economic advancement.
According to Mohammed, entrepreneurship would definitely help increase gross national product as well as per capita income of the people in a country. Gross national product and per capita income increment in the country is a sign of economic growth, indeed.
"Entrepreneurs play a key role in increasing the standard of living of the people by adopting latest innovations in the production of wide variety of goods and services in large scale that too at a lower cost. This enables the people to avail better quality goods at lower prices which results in the improvement of their standard of living. Entrepreneurs also help in promoting Ethiopia's export-trade, which is an important ingredient of economic development. They produce goods and services in large scale for the purpose earning huge amount of foreign exchange from export in order to combat the import dues requirement," Mohammed underlined.
Mohammed says entrepreneurs act as catalytic agent for change which results in chain reaction. Once an enterprise is established, the process of industrialization is set in motion. This leads to overall development of an area due to increase in demand and setting up of more and more units. In this way, the entrepreneurs multiply their entrepreneurial activities, thus creating an environment of enthusiasm and conveying an impetus for overall development of the area.
He said, "Entrepreneurs have been looking for opportunities, identify them and seize them mainly for economic gains. An action oriented entrepreneur is a highly calculative individual who is always willing to undertake risks in order to achieve their goals. The aim of the government has been to create employment opportunities for youth while focusing on rapid economic growth. Entrepreneurship development is one of the mechanisms adopted by the government towards the creation of job opportunities."
According to Mohammed, every economy requires its expertise and knowledge in order to make avail of services and goods to the consumer. Entrepreneurs' contribution to the economy is of immense value. An economy is much dependent upon the performance level of its entrepreneur. They play a vital role in the growth of the national income as well as raising the per capita income of citizens.
As to Mohammed, entrepreneurs are prime movers of innovation. Entrepreneurship is known for the high risks involved in launching a startup. True, entrepreneurship is all about putting to better use the resources which are considered to be of low value with an aim of earning income. Economic growth is measured in terms of a sustained increase in real income. It is the entrepreneurial communities who complement and supplement the economic growth increase per capita income by identifying and establishing profitable business ventures.
He added that entrepreneurs have also supplemented the economic growth by enhancing the physical quality of life. Establishment of enterprises leads to increase in employment avenues both directly and indirectly. Consequently, poverty is alleviated as per capita income grows. This results in improving the physical quality of life which is an indicator of economic growth. Entrepreneurs help in the growth of infrastructural facilities such as roads, bridges, buildings, factories, etc. which are the cornerstones of economic growth. Establishment of factories and industries in a particular locality presupposes the growth of infrastructural facilities.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
"Entrepreneurship involves creation and use of innovative ideas, maximization of output from given resources, development of managerial skills, etc., and all these factors are so essential for the economic development of particularly a developing country like ours. Needless to state, entrepreneurs promote capital formation by mobilizing the idle savings of public. They employ their own as well as borrowed resources for setting up their enterprises. Such type of entrepreneurial activities leads to value addition and creation of wealth, which is very essential for the industrial and economic development of the country," he underlined.
According to Mohammed, the major point that needs to be raised in this regard is entrepreneurs help remove regional disparities through setting up of industries in less developed and retrograde areas. The growth of industries and business in these areas lead to a large number of public benefits like health, education, entertainment, among others.
It also stimulates equitable redistribution of wealth and income in the interest of the country to more people and geographic areas, thus giving benefit to larger sections of the society. Entrepreneurial activities also generate more activities and give a multiplier effect in the economy, he opined.
In a nutshell, entrepreneur can also be a means to explore and exploit opportunities, encourage effective resource mobilization of capital and skill towards bringing in new products and services and develops markets for growth of the economy. In such a way, it helps increase gross national product as well as per capita income of the people in the nation.
