Entrepreneurship

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Browsing Entrepreneurship by Subject "Youth -- Employment"

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    Exploring youth entrepreneurship
    (Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), 2020) Holt, Diane
    This report explores aspects of youth entrepreneurship as a mechanism to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. It sets out the position and challenges of youth in Cambodia, Lao PDR, the Philippines, the Gambia, and Fiji, and investigates the dynamics of youth entrepreneurship through an overview of key debates, including the importance of context and the role of the informal economy. The report presents good practices to promote youth entrepreneurship as a way to maintain global employment rates and provide sustained livelihood opportunities to vulnerable groups. This paper was prepared under the project ‘Enhancing National Capacities for Unleashing Full Potentials of Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in Developing Countries’, supported by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Sub-Fund of the UN Peace and Development Fund (UNPDF), of which the People’s Republic of China is a major contributor.
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    Promoting youth entrepreneurship in Africa: a policy brief - 2020
    (African Union Commission, 2020)
    Youth unemployment is one of the major challenges faced by the African Union (AU) Member States. The problem is exacerbated by limited alternate opportunities to earn decent livelihoods. Since the youth form the backbone of the African population - over 60% - the continent’s sustainable development hinges on harnessing the demographic dividend. That entails going beyond the limited formal employment opportunities for youth and creating and availing opportunities to make a decent living and contribute to the realisation of Agenda 2063. Acknowledging the importance of investing in and creating space and opportunities for young people for them to realise their full potential, the African Union has pioneered several initiatives geared towards youth empowerment. The AU Agenda 2063 recognises the need to do this as a prerequisite for achieving the socio-economic transformation of Africa. Through its African Plan of Action for Youth Empowerment (APAYE), the AU places a premium on five key priority areas, among them youth employment and entrepreneurship. The African Union Commission (AUC) has rolled out an initiative “1 Million By 2021” which is aimed at reaching millions of youth from across the continent with opportunities and interventions in key areas of employment, entrepreneurship, education and engagement. Youth entrepreneurship is projected to be increasingly relevant in the current contexts of rising unemployment and underemployment, as well as insecure, low-paying, hazardous employment that does not result in liveable wages. However, Covid-19 outbreak has shown that pandemics and disasters have the potential to subject young entrepreneurs or businesses to a great deal of uncertainty and exposure to high risk of unproductivity. Covid-19 has led to a global health emergency and economic slowdown with trade, investments and employment being seriously affected. This has left many vulnerable youth-led enterprises struggling to carry on business in the face of unexpected economic shockwaves. Response to the Covid-19 crisis should entail cushioning young entrepreneurs against the shockwaves, assisting them to develop long-term growth plans, finding innovative ways to survive the economic slowdown and searching for novel market opportunities.
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    Skills and youth entrepreneurship in Africa: analysis with evidence from Swaziland
    (African Development Bank, 2014-07) Brixiová, Zuzana; Ncube, Mthuli; Bicaba, Zorobabel
    The shortages of entrepreneurial skills have lowered search effectiveness of potential young entrepreneurs and the rate of youth start-ups. Our paper contributes to closing a gap in the entrepreneurship and development literature with a model of costly firm creation and skill differences between young and adult entrepreneurs. The model shows that for young entrepreneurs facing high cost of searching for business opportunities, support for training is more effective in stimulating productive start-ups than subsidies. Further, the case for interventions targeted at youth rises in societies with high cost of youth unemployment. We test the role of skills and training for productive youth entrepreneurship on data from a recent survey of entrepreneurs in Swaziland.
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    Strengthening youth entrepreneurship in South African townships
    (Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, 2024) Braithwaite, Samantha
    South Africa faces significant economic challenges, with youth disproportionately affected by high unemployment rates and limited economic participation. Townships, home to a significant portion of the unemployed population, are now focal points for addressing youth entrepreneurship as a solution. However, sparse data on township youth entrepreneurial activity hinders effective support strategies. This research indicates that proximity issues, such as isolation and lack of access to information, are key barriers for both youth entrepreneurs and business development support providers. Current support efforts often lack relevance and fail to target high-growth potential businesses. To improve outcomes, there’s a need to shift focus towards reaching more youth entrepreneurs and tailoring interventions to their needs.
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    Youth enterprise development strategy 2013-2023
    (The Department of Small Business Development, 2014-05)
    The Department of Small Business Development is delighted to introduce to the public the Youth Enterprise Development Strategy (YEDS). South Africa is faced with the challenge of limited and poor participation of young people in the economy. A salient feature of this poor economic participation is high persistent youth unemployment, which means that young people are not acquiring the skills and work experience they need to assist in driving the economy forward. It is also difficult for young South Africans to secure business opportunities to develop their own businesses. The overall unemployment rate in the country stands at 25% and rises to about 36% if discouraged workers are included in the calculation1. Youth unemployment constitutes 73% of the total unemployment in the country. Therefore the ratio of youth to-adult unemployment is about 1:3 (i.e. for every unemployed adult there are three unemployed youth). About 42% of young people under the age of 30 are unemployed, compared to less than 17% of adults over the age of 30. Only one in eight working adults under the age of 25 have a job, compared with 40% in most emerging economies similar to South Africa. Employment of youth aged between 18 and 24 years old has fallen by more than 20% since December 2008. Unemployed young people tend to be less skilled and inexperienced; almost 86% do not have formal further or tertiary education, while two-thirds have never worked. The overall determinants of the high levels of youth unemployment are a lack of skills for jobs required by the economy; young job seekers believe the probability of finding a job is so low that they do not even look; lack of work experience; lack of job search capabilities and networks; companies find it risky and costly to employ young people; the rate of population growth among youth far exceeds the number of jobs created by the economy and, in certain instances, the low levels of economic growth. The Department of Small Business Development offers this policy instrument in response to the call made by the New Growth Path (NGP) for the state to provide bold, imaginative and effective strategies to create millions of new jobs that would also address youth unemployment and limited participation of young people in the economy. Through this strategy instrument, Government intends to foster youth economic participation by deliberately enhancing youth entrepreneurship, accelerating the growth of youth owned and managed enterprises capable of contributing to the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate and increasing youth self-employment and innovation.