The webinar offers an opportunity to engage in meaningful dialogue, exchange insights, and identify practical strategies for advancing gender inclusion in Africa's technology and innovation ecosystem!
These three reports highlight the challenges facing South African entrepreneurs–and how targeted policies could bring hope and ignite growth.
This is for relevant support organizations and entrepreneurs working in townships to design and pilot a program that would effectively bridge the gaps limiting the effectiveness of support services.
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.
South African politicians frequently refer to entrepreneurship as a potential solution to the economy’s significant unemployment problem. In reality, many entrepreneurs need to come from townships. Numerous reports address challenges faced by South African entrepreneurs. What distinguishes this report from extant studies is that this report features the voices of entrepreneurs and entrepreneur support organisations (ESO) to vividly portray township entrepreneurs’ challenges through in-depth interviews. This report also aims to elucidate the factors that contributed to the success of exemplary township entrepreneurs despite existing challenges and other strategies that ESOs can employ to guide more entrepreneurs to emulate these success stories.
Traditionally, before the Skoll World Forum, ANDE, convenes for its annual London Member Meeting. This year in partnership with the IGC, members are scheduled for April 8 at the LSE.
ANDE South Asia Convening is an initiative to bring this ecosystem of entrepreneur support organizations together to further economic growth and strengthen the SGB ecosystem in South Asia.