•FOR Zambia to develop holistically, it needs young people to take the challenge and think out of the box.

By DANIEL LIFUKA SICHINGA –

IN recent years, the promotion of entrepreneurship as a possible source of job creation, empowerment and economic dynamism in a rapidly globalising world has attracted increasing policy and scholarly attention.
However, despite this attention, there has been no systematic attempt to look at it from a youth angle.
Zambia with a young population of over 13 million people has the majority of its people as youth’, who are a link towards national development.
Entrepreneurship or having an enterprise entails that one develops an ideal idea that they develop into a business as means of generating income.
Therefore it is imperative that before looking at the challenges of breaking through to entrepreneurship for the Zambia youth, we understand what ‘youth entrepreneurship’ is.
A ‘Youth’ is defined by the United Nations as young people between 15-24 years of age. Subsequently, however, in Zambia, a ‘youth’ is defined as any person aged between 15-35 years of age.
‘Youth entrepreneurship’ is therefore defined as the “practical application of enterprising qualities, such as initiative, innovation, creativity, and risk-taking into the work environment (either in self-employment or employment in small start-up firms), using the appropriate skills necessary for success in that environment and culture” this means young individuals have to develop and make full use of their own abilities.
Youth entrepreneurship spans across all sectors of the economy in Zambia. Most youth’s because of high levels of unemployment, poverty and other socio-economic factors choose to venture out into small enterprise as a means to sustain their livelihoods.
Benefits of youth entrepreneurship are many but among these are that; it does provide self-employment,it promotes innovation and resilience as it encourages young people to find new solutions, ideas and ways of doing things through experience-based learning. Youth-run enterprises provide valuable goods and services to society, especially the local community that would need local cheap products; another thing is that social and cultural identity is promoted through youth enterprises. Youth enterprises give young people, especially the marginalised youth, a sense of ‘meaning’ and ‘belonging’.
A thing that shapes the identity of the youth and encourage others to treat them as equal members of society and In a much broader sense, ‘entrepreneurship’, when treated as ‘enterprise’, helps young women and men develop new skills and experiences that can be applied to many other challenges in life.
For Zambia to develop holistically, it needs young people to take the challenge and think out of the box.
Zambian youth entrepreneurs could venture out into so many sectors of the economy such as Agriculture, Tourism, Forestry, Fisheries and many other service areas of growth.
Zambia as a country is blessed with so much abundant natural resources though there is the over dependence on Copper as a first exports natural resource.
Diversification in the economy is what is currently important as stability of an economy is based on so many indicators and one being the number of products and services a country is exporting to other countries.
Zambia is relatively well endowed with water compared to other countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Although Zambia is well endowed with water, the resource is not well developed.
Many youth’s dream of white collar jobs neglecting the need for innovation and creativity in the country.
Big people that had made it in life like Steve Jobs the founder of Apple a company that deals in software and production of the commonly known communication devices‘iPhones’ and Apple computers was an entrepreneur who at his time of death was a multi-billionaire.
At quiet a tender age he decided to utilise the knowledge he had to come up with his own enterprise.
Other notable people are the likes of Aliko Dangote who at the age of 21 started his own company.
And today he is regarded as the richest man in Africa and 23rd richest person in this world.
These two people had one thing in common the need for them to have their own enterprise and alleviate their families out of poverty.
Challenges that the youth entrepreneur faces in Zambia are numerous. What lacks really is based on entrepreneurship education and having access to working capital.
It is important for the youth to acquire appropriate entrepreneurial skills, motivations, attitudes, attributes, behaviours, and values. Such skills as strategic skills relate to how a person sees the world, envisions what is possible or desirable, and identifies entrepreneurial opportunities in the world around them.
On the other hand tactical skillsare important to conceptualising a business, developing a business plan and establishing, launching, and operating a business.
Though Youth Development Funds and the Citizen Economic Empowerment funds exist in Zambia access to these funds for many youth’s with brilliant ideas for some time now has proved to be a hindrance to development.
One argues that when the funds are disbursed to different provinces of the country, those that access these funds are usually people that have a know about of where to get these funds as there is no mass communication to inform the stakeholders that might be interested through the media. Another argues that though this may be the case one does not need to rely on external funds to start a business enterprise.
The best capital resource one would have is an idea which the carefully plan into a successful business.
Another challenge that the Zambia entrepreneur wishing to break through lacks is the aspect of innovation and creativity.
Innovation entails one getting an existing idea and coupling it with their own creativity to come up with new products and services as means to sustain there livelihoods. Areas of innovation for the Zambian Youth entrepreneur wishing to undertake the natural resource root are broad and diverse.
Not long ago people used to rely only on fire wood and charcoal as a source of energy but today through innovation and creativity many are excelling in natural resource product utilisation of charcoal briquettes, which are made from saw dust. Others have gone to the extent of developing pallets from saw dust, which is innovation at its best use.
The call is therefore for Zambian Youth entrepreneurs to start thinking in lines of growing green businesses.
Zambia is faced with so many environmental problems that could spark into a brilliant business venture.
The accumulation of waste products in Zambia could be a thing of the past, if young budding entrepreneurs could think of having a recycling company.
Zambia would stop importing canned fish and beef if one went into the processing of fish and beef into finished products. Zambia would be a green basket of the Southern Africa Development Community, if one budding entrepreneur decided to start an enterprise that provides educational services to the community in agriculture.
In conclusion, challenges have been centered literally on having an education in entrepreneurship and also access to working capital.
The most important thing that the government of the Republic of Zambia may do is to introduce entrepreneurship as a compulsory school subject in secondary schools.
One wise man once said “when you educate a person and you liberate them”. Having these simple skills from onset will help those that do not make it to tertiary education be learned and possibly successful members of society.
If policy on entrepreneurship exists in the education sector, let the government of the day enforce effective monitoring that is followed by the right parties involved in the education sector. The other thing is to increase budget allocation to entrepreneurship schemes in Zambia so as to have as many youth’s as possible accessing the funds, but of course coupled on with effective mass communication to the parties involved and also providing a good business environment that favours the entrepreneur export their goods to international markets.
To the youth entrepreneur, the challenge is to embrace entrepreneurship education and be innovative.
Take on businesses that everyone is not doing.
Natural resources have provided such opportunities. Take on existing ideas and try to advance them into something unique of an accepted stated international standard so that you can break through to international markets.
I will end with the Bemba Proverb “Imiti ikula empanga” (today’s shrubs are tomorrow’s forests). Indeed youth entrepreneurs are if not today’s key to sustainable socio-economic development of Zambia but what is important is to take a step towards utilizing ones capabilities through entrepreneurship.
Share with us your experiences.