Philanthropic foundation Omidyar Network warned against an idealised African entrepreneurial mindset in its report released this morning (Friday) in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Arguing the fundamental role of entrepreneurship for greater wealth on the continent, the report lists a few recommendations for facing challenges based on its findings for selected sub-Saharan countries.
Titled Accelerating Entrepreneurship in Africa Initiative in 2012, the project was motivated by the curiosity to understand African entrepreneurship better.
The report remarks that the average African entrepreneur is not “appreciative of the full journey”, when it comes to embarking on entrepreneurship.
The report reads: “Having a romanticised image of the smart, impetuous, bold and rich entrepreneur who conquers markets and lives in luxury can be very misleading if it is not coupled with an awareness of the countless hours of work, disconcerting moments of payroll uncertainty at month-end, struggles to keep operations going on razor-thin cash flows, and many other challenges that all entrepreneurs encounter at one time or another.”
On the motivation and mindset of African entrepreneurs, the mentality is labelled as one of “survival”.
The multi-phased research includes information gained through 72 interviews, from 582 entrepreneurs from six sub-Saharan countries – South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria Ethiopia, Tanzania and Ghana.
Financing, skills and talent, as well as infrastructure are listed as the top three challenges to business establishment for entrepreneurs in the selected countries.
The report recommends improved business support as a ray of hope to grow small enterprises with business advisory services, government programmes and incubators.
Although policies are not seen as a main hindrance, research interpretations point to administrative backlog as unsupportive in progress.
African governments are slowly waking up to the positive role of entrepreneurship in economic growth, it stated.
“More and more governments are recognising that entrepreneurship can be a huge contributor to economic growth and are beginning to support efforts and initiatives that encourage innovation and enterprise-creation.”
A recent report by Dalberg, however, pointed to the limits policy set to African investment growth, also emphasised by Erika van der Merwe, chief executive of the South African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association, at the African Venture Capital Association (AVCA) conference last week in Cape Town, South Africa.
Omidyar collaborated with Monitor group to explore the most influential obstacles hampering entrepreneurship on the continent.
