Many developing countries struggle with achieving full potential of their most abundant and most precious resource: youth. As young people around the world consider their professional options, they are often constrained by the choice between unemployment and hard to obtain public sector jobs. Those who aspire for more must be willing to think creatively, take risks, and even be branded an odd one out by their more skeptical peers. Still, the power to shape one’s own destiny and to become a change maker gives entrepreneurship an undeniable potential.
James Shikwati, Director of the Inter Region Economic Network (IREN) in Kenya, emphasized the value of youth entrepreneurship in his CIPE Development Institute presentation (free registration required):
- “Why I see entrepreneurship to be strategic for young people is that it involves them in problem solving of a given community. And we need to encourage more and more of this. We want to look at youth as people who contribute to society.”
But in order to contribute to society, young entrepreneurs need their countries to improve the business climate in which they operate. Without clear property rights, they are discouraged from taking business risks since they cannot be certain of secure ownership. Without entrepreneur-friendly rules and regulations, aspiring entrepreneurs drown in the ocean of bureaucracy and can’t realize their vision. And without the rule of law, corruption devours business profits, hampers growth, and saps resources. The challenge in many developing countries is to provide young people with enabling environments where proper institutions can foster the culture of innovation.
You can learn more about CIPE Development Institute here.
Published Date: January 27, 2009