Fast forward to 2030, Africa’s young population stands at the forefront of economic transformation. Youth and women entrepreneurs have had a profound impact on their communities and the continent at large. Their energy, resilience, and creativity are not just changing the landscape of business in Africa—they are driving the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Yet challenges persist in creating the conditions for entrepreneurs—especially those from marginalized communities—to succeed on the continent. To fully harness their potential, we must focus on empowering youth and women entrepreneurs with the right tools and creating an enabling environment for them to thrive.
Entrepreneurship has always been at the heart of Africa’s economic engine, with small and medium enterprises providing the bulk of jobs across the continent. Africans have sought employment through entrepreneurial activities across sectors such as farming, crafts, and informal retail. While many are able to embark on this journey without external assistance, many others hit financial, educational, and/or logistical barriers, making entrepreneurship an unlikely option despite the desire to pursue it. However, entrepreneurship is essential to Africa growth. The creation of 10 successful new businesses, for example, has the potential to add 1.4 billion dollars to a country’s gross domestic product and create upwards of 2,400 new jobs.
In recent decades, many organizations have looked for ways to minimize these barriers to entrepreneurship so as to enhance economic growth and create employment opportunities on the continent.
As a major component of the entrepreneurship ecosystem, TEF Entrepreneurship Programme is creating opportunities through various projects targeting marginalized groups interested in entrepreneurship. Toward this goal, TEF has committed to disburse $100 million in seed capital over a period of ten years. With this funding, TEF has trained over 20,000 entrepreneurs, 9,000 of whom are women thus far. In 2023, over half of those employed by the businesses supported by TEF were women and almost one-third were youth.
The BeGreen Africa initiative, a collaboration between the TEF, United Nations Children’s Fund Generation Unlimited, IKEA Foundation, and young green entrepreneurs, is targeting 1,000 young entrepreneurs for training and mentorship. From this initial group, 120 will start green energy businesses in Kenya, Nigeria, Morocco, Senegal, or South Africa with $5,000 of seed funding. By empowering young people to create their own start-ups through social entrepreneurship, these burgeoning businesses will have the power to provide jobs, stimulate the economy, and provide a social good by working to minimize climate change.7
In 2020, the TEF partnered with the European Union, the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Seedstars Association For Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets, and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit to implement a women-focused initiative called Women Entrepreneurship for Africa (WE4A).
Through this initiative, 2,420 women from underserved communities and the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa received much-needed training, mentoring, networks, and seed capital funding. Of these 2,420 women, 100 went on to participate in the second stage of the program, through which they received advanced technical support and additional funding.9 Building on the learnings and positive outcome of this partnership, in 2021, the TEF partnered with Google to launch yet another women-focused initiative that saw 500 rural-based aspiring women entrepreneurs receive seed capital of $5,000 in addition to training, mentoring, and access to networks.
A Guest Editorial