Creating Businesses from Nothing

By Steve Metcalfe, Head of Communications and Campaigns, Youth Business International (YBI)

Creating Businesses from Nothing

“Entrepreneurship is key to tackling youth unemployment”, said H.E. Joyce Kikafuna, Ugandan High Commissioner to the UK, at an event held by Grow Movement on Tuesday 17 November.

The event was held to mark Global Entrepreneurship Week, the world’s largest celebration of entrepreneurs which takes place in 160 countries around the world. From networking events in Zambia with Microsoft Biz4Afrika to a Startup Weekend bootcamp in Ecuador, there are thousands of events happening to encourage people to start their own business.

In many of these countries, entrepreneurship is being seen as an increasingly important solution to tackling the growing crisis of youth unemployment.

Back to Uganda: with the country’s youth population the world’s second highest after Niger, youth unemployment is indeed a major problem. In fact, with some 400,000 young Ugandans entering the job market every year to compete for just 9,000 jobs, finding a way for young Ugandans to create their own employment is essential.

People often talk about entrepreneurship in terms of highly innovative, tech-based startups from countries such as the USA or Singapore, but what better definition of innovation is there than creating something, from nothing?

Youth Business International is a network of initiatives helping young people to start their own business, and our member in Uganda, Enterprise Uganda has just released on Global Entrepreneurship Week a documentary film reflecting their work.

The film shows that with the right entrepreneurial mindset, a young Ugandan can create a business with no additional funding at all. That’s right – no additional funding. Just the resources that they already have. In fact, one entrepreneur in the film starts off his entrepreneurial journey using just the shirt that he was wearing.

As 31 year old entrepreneur Omodong Moses concludes, “I tell the youth, please let’s not wait for the government. I don’t see any need of waiting for money, either from a parent, an uncle, from government or from NGOs.”

Take a look at the film:

Creating decent work and economic growth is one of the Global Goals that most closely links to the private sector, and we believe that the private sector can support young Ugandan entrepreneurs in two main ways. Firstly, through investing in organisations that provide entrepreneurial support for young people, such as Enterprise Uganda; and secondly, through providing mentors who can help increase business sustainability.

Find out more about Youth Business International here: www.youthbusiness.org

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