14th August 2024
Sello Motseta
The Local Enterprise Authority(LEA) hosted the Youth Business Summit Wednesday to foster youth entrepreneurship by providing training and funding support for youth owned enterprises.
The highlight of the Summit was the Business Pitch presentations by the top 20 finalists of the Youth Business Elevator Challenge.
“Nurturing youth entrepreneurship is crucial for job creation and tackling the challenges of youth unemployment and underemployment in Botswana,” said Ronald Phutego, Director, Economic Empowerment in the Ministry of Enterpreneurship.
He said, “This project is part of Botswana’s involvement as a pilot country for the African Growth platform(AGP), which aims to address Africa’s unemployment challenge by scaling up 100million SME’s and startups by 2025, with funding from the African Development Bank.”
The current set of projects, titled ‘Scaling and Accelerating Youth Entrepreneurship in Botswana(SAYEB),” draws from the budget for the Forbes Under 30 Africa Summit, which was hosted as part of the broader AGP implementation plan.
The project comprises four key components with the first being a consultancy study by the Botswana Institute of development Study(BIDPA) to identify interventions to stimulate youth entrepreneurship and develop high impact, innovative initiatives to build the capacity and growth of youth owned or led MSME’s and start ups in Botswana.
The study aims to identify a pipeline of high-impact, bankable and sustainable interventions in line with the Africa Growth Platform program objectives[create jobs by scaling 100 million SMEs and start-ups by 2025] to stimulate youth entrepreneurship in Botswana.
The other is a consultancy to develop a framework for reforms to increase access to finance and the creation of an SME centred investment vehicle to support youth enterpreurship in Botswana.
The third involves the creation of a structured Enterpreneurship Ecosystem Technology Platform to facilitate the development of youth led star ups and MSME enterprises.
The procurement for this component is being finalized and execution is scheduled for completion by November 2024. The fourth component is the Youth Business Elevator Challenge and Youth summit.
The challenge was launched in June 2024 and will conclude today with the announcement of the top ten finalists, who will share a prize of P1million.
According to official sources the unemployment rate in Botswana is higher among youth from 32.4% to 34.4% between 2020 and 2021 as well as from 33.5% in 2022 to 34.4% in 2023 (Statistics Botswana, 2023).
The youth in Botswana accounts for 59.6% of the total unemployed (244,594), whilst the graduates’ unemployment rate was estimated at 22.2% of the total unemployed during Q4 of 2022 (Statistics Botswana, 2022).
David Mmopelwa, Research Fellow at Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis(BIDPA), said “The youth accounts for 59.6% of the total unemployed (244,594), whilst the graduates’ unemployment rate was estimated at 22.2% of the total unemployed during Q4 of 2022 (Statistics Botswana, 2022).”
He said, “The graduates’ unemployment comprises brigades (3.6%), technical/vocational colleges (4.6%), Educational colleges (5.4%), the Institute of Health Sciences (0.4%) and universities (8.2%).”
Mmopelwa stressed the importance of mapping the current youth entrepreneurship ecosystem, including “Enterprise Supporting Organizations” (ESOs) such as incubators, accelerators, hubs, financial intermediaries and other specialized firms, operators and networks providing finance.
It should also look at Government service provision, support and incentives specifically relating to start-ups and MSMEs. Private sector stakeholders that provide mentoring and coaching, and other ecosystem players that promote networking and access to Business Development Services.
Other resources needed would include be facilitating a supportive business environment for entrepreneurship development in Botswana. This process would help to identify gaps, barriers, challenges and opportunities in the ecosystem, with recommendations on how to exploit opportunities and to bridge gaps and remove barriers.
