A new World Economic Forum initiative, the Africa Growth Platform, has been launched with the goal of helping Africa’s community of start-up enterprises grow and compete in international markets.
The Africa Growth Platform will do this in three ways.
First, it will secure commitments from governments to implement policy reforms aimed at stimulating and accelerating business growth.
Secondly, it aims to build a community of investors, whether private investors, foundations, multilateral institutions or corporate intrapreneurs to enable better coordination and pooling of resources that could facilitate larger subsequent rounds of funding.
Finally, the platform will create and sustain a community of start-up businesses themselves, promoting collaboration and sharing best practices.
The need for an innovative approach to helping Africa’s start-ups reach the scale where they become sustainable is backed up by data. Two thirds of Africa’s 420-million young people are currently unemployed which highlights a clear need for new solutions to drive employment growth.
At the same time, Africa’s young population is well-endowed with entrepreneurial spirit with early-stage entrepreneurial activity 13% higher than the global average. However, due to insufficient support and infrastructure, the region’s start-ups are 14% more likely to fail than those elsewhere in the world.
“Africa’s entrepreneurs are its greatest economic asset but spirit and resourcefulness alone are not always enough to help them succeed,” says Elsie Kanza, head of Africa at the World Economic Forum. “Too often start-ups and innovative enterprises fail needlessly through lack of additional finance or overly burdensome regulations. The Africa Growth Platform brings together all the actors; governments, investors and the businesses themselves necessary to create an environment where they can fulfil their potential in terms of growth and employment.”
The founding members of the Africa Growth Platform are Alibaba Group, AT Kearney, Dalberg Group, Export Trading Group, US African Development Foundation, and Zenith Bank.
The Africa Growth Platform will form a major part of the programme at the forthcoming World Economic Forum on Africa 2019, taking place from 4-6 September in Cape Town.