Abstract
In a special report on Africa, The Economist (2016) hails the 1.2 billion opportunities that abound in Africa. This number is a reference to the African market of 1.2 billion people which promises lucrative returns for the army of investors and others who wish to enter and perhaps exploit this amazing continent. At a time when China’s robust presence in Africa unnerves Western institutions and their declining influence in the continent, we find two other developments that underline the changes occurring in Africa. The first is the rapid fall in the commodities market, and the second is the upsurge in entrepreneurial endeavour. In Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast the six-lane toll bridge, ubiquitous advertising, the abundance of working cranes and new buildings, all point to the emergence of a new prosperity just five years after a military offensive muscled out the defeated the incumbent president when he refused to leave office. With a growth rate of around 9 per cent per year, the Ivory Coast is the second fastest growing African economy after Ethiopia, importing cars and electronics while it exports cocoa, coffee and cashew nuts. The average annual GDP change in Sub-Saharan Africa ranges from 6.0 per cent to 8 per cent, and above 8 per cent across countries from the north to the south and from the east to the west, from Ethiopia to Chad, Tanzania, Nigeria, Angola and the Ivory Coast (The Economist, 2016).
Fueling the growth in Africa is the compost of FDI, the involvement of the diaspora, the modest growth of a middle class which provides considerable investment opportunities and the median age of 25 everywhere across Africa, except South Africa, and the youth population’s literacy rates that exceed 70 per cent. Underpinning these characteristics is the entrepreneurship factor as evinced in the endeavours of the locally sourced fruit-based drinks products of Wilson’s Juice in Lagos in Nigeria, the Kenyan flower-exporting business, the innovative use of solar panel and mobile technology developed by M-Kopa and M-Pesa in East Africa, that enable the poor to connect to and pay for electricity, send remittances back to their home towns and open bank accounts. Africa’s growth has been made possible because of what African countries have done themselves, and that is to take action to end political conflict where possible, improve general macro-economic conditions and the overall business climate. The growing labour force, the changing urban landscape and the flexing of middle-class muscles referred to above will help to bolster growth (Mitra & Sagagi, 2013). We need more than ever to talk and write about Africa!
It is this emergence of African entrepreneurship that we celebrate in this special issue which is guest edited by Professor Chris Friedrich of Giessen University in Germany and the University of Western Cape in South Africa. The articles are peer-reviewed revisions of submissions made to the exciting 14th International Entrepreneurship Forum conference, which was held in Cape Town in South Africa in September 2015. The articles were chosen carefully to reflect some of the myriad discussions and deliberations that took place at that conference. That was one platform for creative and free thought, some of which captured the African entrepreneurial imagination. It was, therefore, incumbent upon all of us involved with the organization of that conference to provide at least a critical snapshot of some of the interactions based on rigorous research that took place there. In the rest of this issue you will find, a selection of some of the emerging research that attracted our attention and which we wanted to share as widely as possible through our journal. We hope you will enjoy reading them, discuss the contents and share them wherever you think entrepreneurship emerges to change the lives and efforts of people.