Johannesburg nurtures young entrepreneurs
27th July 2009
Simon Harding
An ambitious new policy launched by the City of Johannesburg aims to inspire young people to become entrepreneurs, writes Bongani Nkosi on the city’s official website. The Young Entrepreneurship Policy and Strategy Framework will teach youngsters (aged 10-18) the basic economics and business skills needed to run their own enterprises. Mentorship programmes with large, successful businesses, an annual young entrepreneur award and an international exchange programme, which would bring Johannesburg’s budding entrepreneurs to the UK and US, are all in the pipeline.
‘We will go to schools to teach the youngsters practical economic studies’, said Jason Ngobeni, executive director of the city’s Department for Economic Development. ‘We will present to them business opportunities that they would only learn when they were 20 years of age. We'd one day like to see a large company started by a 12-year-old from Orange Farm (a poor township)’, he added.
It is hoped that the policy will enable poor young people to turn the informal enterprises, such as selling fruit and vegetables on in and outbound trains, which they already undertake in order to make ends meet, into viable long term businesses. Youth entrepreneurship has the potential to steer young people away from crime and the drug trade, which dog the city.
The framework is a brave attempt at tackling the causes of some of Johannesburg’s deepest troubles. Improving young people’s ability to generate an income for themselves and their families hits poverty and boosts the self-esteem and self-belief of all involved. It will encourage young people to be active in dealing with the wider issue so poverty and insecurity by showing them what they can achieve with a little coaching.
However, the aim of the framework is unclear. Does the Department for Economic Development aspire to nurture the big, rapidly growing businesses of the future? Or is the thrust of the policy poverty reduction by establishing small, sustainable micro-enterprises to provide modest, but reliable incomes for the urban poor?
The policy sets out to build on existing entrepreneurial attitudes and motivations and create successful future businesses. But hawking fruit and vegetables on public transport is not an ‘after school or weekend career’, as Nkosi claims. Such activity suggests a desire to survive, rather than a thirst for ever growing profits and a clear vision of a flourishing career. It also remains unclear how young entrepreneurs are to finance their enterprises; lacking capital, they are unable to meet the collateral requirements of commercial lenders, and South African microfinance institutions enjoy neither the coverage nor reputation of their Indian counterparts.
The Young Entrepreneurship Policy and Strategy Framework may well inspire a number of young people to establish their own small businesses, but its aim remains vague and it fails to directly address some of the bigger challenges facing every business in the city, such as access to credit, crime and security.
See also: ‘City to nurture young executives’, Bongani Nkosi, Johannesburg Official City Website, 22/7/09, from Meltwater feed, available at: http://www.joburg.org.za/content/view/4114/266/