With the percentage of unemployed youth rising across the world and the popularity of private enterprise solutions to development increasing daily, youth entrepreneurship has emerged as solution to create jobs and foster growth. Talk of an international youth bulge abounds and development agencies and local governments alike have responded with a wide array of business training and credit programs that target everyone from recent graduates to the most vulnerable. As we have learned most recently with the housing crisis, however, when resources pour too quickly into one area it can create a bubble.
Programs that support youth entrepreneurship can take a variety of forms. Financial literacy, marketing skills, and mentoring help introduce fundamental business skills and endow youth with the knowhow to launch their own enterprise. Access to credit and incubators also contribute to turning budding ventures into sustainable businesses.
Likewise, the landscape of implementers can take many shapes: from local government-funded non-profits to U.S. government-funded development contractors; from NGOs supported by the local private-sector to independent branches of larger Western-based non-profits. As development actors from all sides strive to support youth entrepreneurs from all angles, who’s to ensure there is any coordination?
In a field growing as crowded as youth entrepreneurship, establishing a clear institutional framework for coordination and communication is essential. By talking to each other and sharing approaches and lessons learned, implementers can zoom in on what works, discard what doesn’t, and cooperate wherever possible so as not to duplicate efforts.
A more strategic framework could also highlight those areas that remain in the blind spot of youth entrepreneurship implementers. For instance, despite all the support for starting a business, less focus is given to enabling a business environment more conducive to private enterprise. Business associations that push for lowering barriers to starting a business, such as the Young Entrepreneurs Association in Jordan, should be supported in tandem with business skills training. Greater attention should also be given to promoting education reform. In this campaign, youth also have a natural partner in the business community as ensuring a qualified work force is essential to economic growth.
Global Entrepreneurship Week is a time when partners and aspiring entrepreneurs worldwide pause to draw attention to what’s been accomplished so far to support innovation and ideas. It’s also a great time to ask ourselves where we’re going, how to get there, and how not to step on each others’ toes along the way.
Published Date: November 17, 2010