Can Social Innovation Address Africa’s Twin Development Challenges of Climate Change Vulnerability and Forced Migrations?

Abstract

Some studies indicate that climate change policy failures are endemic to policymakers in both developed and developing countries. Consequently, the increased vulnerability of people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) can partly be attributed to developed-country stakeholders’ inability to understand climate change vulnerability in the context of SSA and a fear on the part of policymakers to implement substantive policy innovations. In order to determine how social innovation and entrepreneurship can be harnessed to enhance climate change resilience and improve the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an inductive analysis using secondary data consisting of research articles, policy briefs, project reports and case studies was undertaken. Agribusiness development–focused entrepreneurship and social innovation were noted to have the potential to facilitate the development of new institutions and social systems that can correct structural inequalities and improve investments in SSA’s agriculture sector, thereby reducing local vulnerabilities to climate change and facilitating the attainment of SDG 16 (i.e., promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development). This article is among the foremost in highlighting how climate change policies that integrate entrepreneurship and rural-to-rural migration as means to reduce vulnerability can reduce youth unemployment and support the ‘leave no one behind’ principle.

Keywords

Agribusiness entrepreneurship leaving no one behind polycentric governance Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)youth unemployment

Introduction

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for state and non-state actors to: strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries; integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning; and improve human and institutional capacity for climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning (UN, 2015). However, there is a probability that the SDGs will not be achieved in Africa, because, among other things, climate change impacts will continue to exacerbate forced displacement and irregular migration, resource competition, conflicts and poverty (Dumenu & Obeng, 2016; Ghimire et al., 2015). For example, it is estimated that during 2008–2011, more than 87 million people were displaced by extreme weather events, with almost all of these displacements happening in economically weak and corrupt states (Ghimire et al., 2015). Further, the 2015–2016 drought in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) reduced the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) area by 0.1 per cent and increased the number of poor people by 1.4 million (World Bank, 2017). Moreover, it is projected that in 2050, an estimated 200 million people will be displaced as a consequence of environmental change (Black et al., 2011). Climate change is therefore considered as a phenomenon that increasingly undermines human security in the present day and will increasingly do so in the future by reducing access to and the quality of natural resources that are important to sustain livelihoods; it is also likely to undermine the capacity of countries to provide opportunities and services to help people sustain their livelihoods (Barnett & Adger, 2007).

SSA is disproportionately vulnerable to climate change due to: its greater reliance on agriculture and other climate-sensitive economic sectors for livelihoods; absence of adaptive infrastructure; rapid population growth; and limited economic and institutional capacity to cope with, and adapt to, climate variability and change (Perez et al., 2015; Pulver & Benney, 2013). Moreover, Africa’s urban environments are characterised by poor urban planning, gaps in public services and infrastructure, settlement in hazard-prone areas and high levels of poverty, illiteracy and poor health (Wilson & Smith, 2014). Consequently, rural-to-urban migrations in Africa may therefore not necessarily reduce climate change vulnerability but actually increase poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, inequality and climate change vulnerability. Additionally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers that regional and transboundary policies and strategies for climate change adaptation in Africa are still in their infancy (Niang et al., 2014). Hence, even though African countries have initiated comprehensive planning processes for climate change, implementation of the climate change programmes and strategies is lagging. Further, the integration of the climate change programmes and strategies with national economic and development planning is limited (Bird et al., 2016; CEPA, 2012). This means that regardless of the existence of various global, regional and national climate change policies, Africa will still have problems in addressing its current and future climate change impacts unless its policymakers develop and implement new innovative policies and mechanisms that can simultaneously reduce climate change vulnerability in rural areas and reduce rural-to-urban migration.

Social innovations are practices that bring about changes in attitudes, behaviour or perceptions, resulting in new social practices. Social innovation practices bring about changes in the way social agents act and interact with each other and also changes in the social context in which these actions take place through the creation of new institutions and new social systems (Cajaiba-Santana, 2014). Other forms of innovation, such as technological innovation and business innovation, focus mostly on discovering and diffusing new knowledge and technologies to improve production, and on generating and recombining ideas to establish a relationship between present efforts and past experiences to solve future problems (Baskaran & Mehta, 2016; Bitzer & Bijman, 2015). However, the factors that underlie the path of social innovation are not a social problem to be solved but the social change it brings about. Social innovation is based on collective actions that take place inside a given social system, which are determined by underlying institutions (Cajaiba-Santana, 2014). Arguably, due to the poor socio-economic characteristics and weak institutions in SSA, and the potential of social innovation processes to create new institutional arrangements and patterns of collaboration, social innovation can help address some of the factors that perpetuate climate change vulnerability, poverty and migration in SSA. Consequently, there is a need to evaluate which policies, actors and factors can promote social innovation for enhanced climate risk management and SDGs’ implementation in SSA.

Previous studies on social innovation, climate change policy implementation and migration include Rodima-Taylor (2012), who undertook research on social innovation and climate adaptation in Tanzania. Rodima-Taylor (2012) concluded that informal institutions can manage local instabilities by creating a favourable environment for local initiative and participation, thereby enhancing the livelihood of their members. Park (2016) looked at clean-energy entrepreneurship in SSA and concluded that institutional capacity that is necessary to support entrepreneurship, innovation and new venture development for sustainable development was weak in many SSA countries. Gupta et al. (2015) analysed innovation for social enterprises in Africa. In their conclusion, Gupta et al. (2015) asserted that in the absence of a favourable environment for innovation, the impact of social entrepreneurship and social enterprises in Africa is constrained, since unlike normal business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs operate in an environment that is marked by institutional voids and market inefficiencies that drive up transaction costs. Cobbinah et al. (2015) assessed the implications of rapid urbanisation on the sustainable development of Africa. Cobbinah et al. (2015) discovered that urbanisation has multiple causes—natural population growth, increasing insecurity and conflict and pull factors (e.g., uneven spatial development of urban and rural areas, perceived economic opportunities in cities) and push factors (e.g., unprofitable agriculture, drought, limited livelihood options in rural areas). They also discovered that there was very limited meaningful guidance available to African governments, planning institutions and policymakers regarding how best to address these concerns. Park and Brooks (2015) assessed climate change policies for flood resiliency. They highlighted that climate change policymaking was prone to chronic policy failures and that existing policy responses to climate change frequently exacerbate the problem. since climate change issues extend not only across specific media (air, land, water, etc.) but also over political jurisdictions, landscape boundaries and traditional policy arenas. Arguably, there are still knowledge gaps on how social innovation can contribute towards better climate change policy development and implementation in the context of SSA and improve SDGs’ implementation in the areas of poverty reduction, food security and responsible migration and mobility of people. The aim of this article is therefore to highlight the potential of social innovation and entrepreneurship in enhancing climate change resilience and fostering the attainment of the SDGs in SSA.

The article is structured as follows: the second section provides the methodology and conceptual framework for the article. In the third section, climate change policy failures in developed and developing countries are expounded through examining weaknesses in policy implementation at the national and local level. Additionally, this section elaborates on the need to enhance climate change resilience through innovative climate change policies and polycentric governance systems that focus on alleviating structural inequalities and adapting to heterogeneous climate change threats. In the fourth section, an elaboration of the potential roles of rural diversification and agriculture development in enhancing climate change resilience and reducing rural-to-urban migration through the promotion of inclusive growth and poverty alleviation is provided. Additionally, the impacts that social innovation and entrepreneurship could have in reducing climate change vulnerability are highlighted through an assessment of the Ghana Youth in Agriculture Programme (YiAP) and Mozambique ingrower programme. The discussion in the fifth section focuses on how social innovation and the promotion of entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector can increase the capacity of the youth and communities to respond to climate change risks and improve investments in the agriculture sector. The conclusion in the sixth section points out that integrating entrepreneurship and social innovation in climate change policies and rural development policies can: (a) reduce migration by eliminating negative perceptions about rural livelihoods and agricultural entrepreneurship; (b) support the implementation of SDG 16 (i.e., promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development); and (c) support the principle of ‘leave no one behind’.

Methodology and Conceptual Framework

In order to achieve the aim of this article (i.e., to highlight the potential of social innovation and entrepreneurship in the attainment of the SDGs in SSA), an inductive analysis using secondary data consisting of various research articles, policy briefs, academic literature reviews, project reports and case studies focusing on the nexus of entrepreneurship, innovation and climate change adaptation was undertaken. Since the research was inductive in nature, the case studies provided in the article were identified through purposive sampling. The case studies were intended not to provide a representative or statistical sample of innovations in enhancing rural and agricultural systems to handle climate change impacts in SSA, but rather to provide an indication of the different agri-entrepreneurship modalities (i.e., profit-sharing and non-profit-sharing models) that are available to national governments, non-governmental organizations and non-state actors or the private sector as solutions to SSA’s varied and complex challenges to strengthening local capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flood and other disasters. There is a substantial variation in socio-economic conditions between and within rural populations, and the prevailing agro-ecology in Africa is typically characterised by spatially heterogeneous and locally homogeneous biophysical conditions, which means that vulnerability assessment requires a spatially explicit localisation of vulnerable populations to define targeted interventions (van Wesenbeeck et al., 2016). Consequently, rather than attempting to formulate a conceptual framework on how innovation and entrepreneurship can influence climate change adaptive capacity, the article focuses on theorising that innovation and entrepreneurship can: enable communities to increase their income-earning potential and assets; improve access to, and the utilisation of, technology; and create jobs, thereby improving resilience to the impacts of climate change and enhancing the implementation of the SDGs (Adenle et al., 2017; Moore, 2015; Nagler & Naudé, 2017). Such an approach is anticipated to support conceptualisations that explain how entrepreneurship and innovation help in resolving environmental problems of global socio-economic systems and how opportunities for creating new products, services and income sources are inherent in market failures (Dean & McMullen, 2007).

Climate Change Policy Failures in Developed and Developing Countries: A Systemic Failure?

National-level Policies

Climate change is still a threat to sustainable development, regardless of the existence of various global and national policies and strategies aimed at minimising climate risks. According to Wilson and Smith (2014), the climate change policy domain is complex, with respect to both climate change science and projected impacts and the governmental/institutional framework for policy discussions and actions. A contributing factor to climate change policy failures in some contexts is therefore that climate change decision-making is more frequently based on insufficient knowledge and limited resources (McKibbin & Wilcoxen, 2009; Morton et al., 2011; Perez et al., 2015; Thornton & Lipper, 2014). Consequently, it is difficult to determine future climate risks based on predictions, or to use experience and historical data to identify and plan for the likely direct and indirect impacts of climate change (Perez et al., 2015). Some analysts have therefore concluded that between now and 2030, climate policies and stringent global emission reductions can do little to alter the amount of global warming that will take place, and as such, adaptation strategies should focus on reducing vulnerability and poverty through targeted adaptation investments and improved socio-economic conditions (i.e., higher incomes and lower poverty and inequality) (Biesbroek et al., 2010; Hallegatte et al., 2016).

Africa is usually regarded as a region that has adaptation deficits because of a lack of institutional, financial or technological capacity to adapt effectively (Bowen et al., 2012; Fankhauser et al., 2015). However, there are signs to show that climate change policy failures are endemic in both developed and developing countries (Burch, 2010; Casado-Asensio & Steurer, 2014; Eriksen et al., 2011; Park & Brooks, 2015). For example, integrated policies and strategies for climate change and sustainable development, which are used in both developed and developing countries, are only managing to shape perceptions, enable governments to meet international obligations and provide communication tools to outline a vision for society; they are failing to build momentum for political commitment that can shape governmental agendas or major political decisions in favour of more effective climate change action (Casado-Asensio & Steurer, 2014; Nagoda, 2015; Park & Brooks, 2015).

Developed countries can be considered to be more resilient to the impacts of climate change, as they have new technologies and institutions to improve climate change mitigation and adaptation (Bowen et al., 2012; Fankhauser et al., 2015). However, climate change is also arguably retarding growth and development in developed countries (GCEC, 2014), and policymakers in developed countries have problems in framing effective climate change policies for both developed countries and developing countries. These issues are arguably increasing the vulnerability of Africa to the impacts of climate change, due to the support and inputs that developed-country policymakers provide in the development and implementation of climate change policies in developing countries. For example, a study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, 2014) showed that climate change resilience–building interventions initiated in Kenya and Uganda by development partners did not include aspects that the local communities and beneficiaries rated highly as local resilience-building characteristics/factors. Moreover, developed-country stakeholders mainly use climate impact assessment tools and impact metrics that have a basis on developed countries’ realities and values rather than universal realities and values (Serdeczmy et al., 2016) for policy development in both developed countries and developing countries. Therefore, some climate change policy failures can arguably be attributed to the fact that developing countries are meant to follow and adopt preservationist and reactionary policies initiated by developed countries which are altogether inadequate for responding to environmental challenges presented by climate change (Park & Brooks, 2015) in both developed and developing countries.

Local-level Policies

Local government and local governance systems are growing in prominence as agents for climate change policy development and implementation. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to local governance systems as a means for improving climate change resilience, as they are often the closest entities for planning and implementing adaptation strategies suitable for the particular geographic and social context in which they are located (Niang et al., 2014; Pasquini et al., 2013). Local governments (in both urban and rural contexts) also have the potential to address local climate change vulnerabilities, as they have a mandate and key role to address vulnerabilities through the provision of local infrastructure and public services and promulgation and regulation of land use and building codes and other local services, which are crucial for effective adaptation to climate change (Wilson & Smith, 2014). However, while in theory and in practice the local government is identified as the level of government closest to community action, given the social, economic and political structures of many developing countries, mainstreaming climate change adaptation into local planning, policy and implementation is expected to be challenging because of existing strains on resources and capacity (Pasquini et al., 2013).

Some of the issues that hamper local-level action on climate change policy development and implementation through local government structures range from individual-level barriers (such as a lack of understanding of climate change and adaptation options) to regulatory/institutional barriers (such as the problems posed by party politics) to sociocultural barriers (such as a lack of interest among municipal constituencies in climate change issues) (Pasquini et al., 2013). Local governance failures manifest themselves through the inability of a local government to solve socio-economic, infrastructural and environmental problems. Unfortunately, in cases where there are local governance failures, the affected households and communities independently adopt measures aimed at reducing climate change impacts (i.e., autonomous household/community adaptation and spontaneous maladaptation). However, since autonomous household/community adaptation is unplanned and uncoordinated, in some cases, the adaptation measures exacerbate vulnerability to extreme weather events such as floods (e.g., autonomous household/community adaptation by residents in a particular area or settlement may have clear benefits for the inhabitants there but potentially have cascading effects on the well-being of inhabitants in other areas) (Mycoo, 2014). Arguably, addressing local governance challenges will therefore call for other non-state actors such as businesses and entrepreneurs to enhance local responses to climate change, either individually by implementing initiatives that have a bearing on increasing climate change resilience at the local level or by collaborating with local governments to implement resilience-building initiatives.

Policy Innovation

With the aforementioned factors in mind, it can be argued that without policy innovations in climate change policymaking and implementation, Africa will continue to experience climate change–induced migrations and poverty traps (Hallegatte et al., 2014). Policy innovation can be defined as changes to existing policy practices which introduce non-status-quo, if not necessarily entirely novel, policy components or combinations of components, which often result in new outcomes (Howlett, 2014). According to Howlett (2014), policymakers and decision-makers in democratic polities are highly risk-averse and therefore unlikely to take policy action unless the circumstances and the nature of the problem they face are propitious (i.e., giving or indicating a good chance of success). Consequently, in both developed and developing countries, there have been failures or fear on the part of policymakers to develop and implement substantive policy innovations, as policymakers exhibit signs of negativity bias and risk aversion. It is for these reasons that climate change policies often do not encompass major or far-reaching policy innovations and experiments and many climate change programmes in different countries have often been procedural and negative in character (Howlett, 2014; Nagoda, 2015 Perez et al., 2015; Wong, 2016;). For example, some climate finance programmes have been shown to exacerbate climate change vulnerability by ignoring existing gender gaps and structural inequalities, consequently reinforcing, rather than challenging, women’s subordination in access to land and public participation (Perez et al., 2015; Wong, 2016).

Non-state actors such as businesses, entrepreneurs and non-governmental organizations can arguably reduce climate change vulnerabilities by eliminating some social and political drivers of poverty and vulnerability through social innovation processes that create polycentric climate change governance systems. According to Ostrom (2008, 2009, 2010), polycentric governance is characterised by an organisational structure wherein multiple independent actors mutually order their relationships with one another under a general system of rules. As opposed to monocentric hierarchies, polycentric systems can function independently or form an interdependent system of relations in order to address collective-action problems, free-rider problems and social dilemmas associated with climate change mitigation and adaptation (Ostrom, 2008, 2009, 2010). Some climate change polices have been criticised for not being responsive enough to local needs as they prescribe one-size-fits-all measures that fail to address the complex combinations of socio-economic, political and environmental factors that act and interact to influence vulnerability to climate change (Dumenu & Obeng, 2016). However, since actors within a polycentric system can independently decide on how to improve climate change resilience within their local setting but still be in compliance with the ‘general system of rules’, polycentric systems provide efficient and adaptable mechanisms for responding to the heterogeneous and ever-changing spatial and temporal threats of climate change.

Africa’s Migration, Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Nexus

Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation as Means for Reducing Climate Change Vulnerability

Regardless of SSA’s urban areas having better access to employment opportunities and social services than rural areas, urbanisation and rural-to-urban migration, at least in the case of SSA, are not solutions for reducing poverty and climate change vulnerability. This follows the fact that urbanisation and agglomeration in cities are on average associated with faster growth but higher income inequality, while rural diversification typically facilitates a more inclusive but slower growth process. Studies in rural Kagera (Tanzania) showed that about one in two individuals/households who exited poverty did so by transitioning from agriculture to the rural non-farm economy, while one in seven exited poverty by migrating to a large city (Christiaensen & Todo, 2014; Christiaensen et al., 2013).

Arguably, the advent of a natural hazard or climatic/environmental shock might not motivate people to migrate, but when a natural hazard or climatic/environmental shock intensifies traditional poverty and inequalities, the affected people and communities might be compelled to migrate in order to find employment (Ghimire et al., 2015). Therefore, since migration is sometimes a response to a weakening of local socio-economic institutions due to a natural hazard or climatic/environmental shock and not a direct result of the natural hazard or climatic/environmental shock itself, climate change policies may be integrated with entrepreneurship policies and strategies. This follows that entrepreneurship facilitates breakthrough innovations that influence the growth of national and local economies, and entrepreneurs exploit opportunities brought by change even though those changes are not necessarily caused by them (Iyigun, 2015). Promoting entrepreneurship can therefore enable rural communities to strengthen their socio-economic institutions and become climate-resilient based on a combination of farm and non-farm activities. In conjunction with promoting entrepreneurship, social innovation processes can also be used to create social capital (informal networks), which can enable communities and entrepreneurs to mobilise and reorganise themselves to reduce their vulnerability to climate change impacts and recover from environmental shocks with limited external support, even with an increased magnitude of natural hazards and climatic/environmental shocks (Becchetti & Castriota, 2011; Marincioni et al., 2013).

4.2 Youth Entrepreneurship as a Strategy for Enhancing Climate Change Resilience

In Africa, 10 million young Africans enter the continent’s workforce annually, since Africa is the fastest growing continent in the world, and more than half of the global population growth between now and 2050 is expected to occur in Africa (AGRA, 2015). More than two-thirds of the economically active population in SSA are employed in agriculture, with the proportion of young workers in some cases being even higher (Conceição et al., 2016). Therefore, despite high rates of migration to urban areas, most SSA youth continue to reside in rural areas and will continue to do so over the coming years, and without sufficient opportunities in manufacturing or services to engage the youth, agriculture will remain a significant sink of labour and source of economic opportunity (Moore, 2015). The World Economic Forum (WEF, 2015) estimated that in 2015, approximately 200 million people were out of a job globally, and the numbers were forecasted to rise to 215 million job seekers by 2018. Additionally, within the given estimate, there were 75 million unemployed youths, and generally, the youth are three times more likely to be out of a job than adults. Since youth unemployment is significantly associated with an increase in the risk of social and political instability (Azeng & Yogo, 2013), creating youth employment opportunities through agribusinesses and agricultural value chains is a rural development priority—these offer a means to address socioeconomic inequalities and promote sustainable opportunities for income generation, agricultural growth and food security for a growing population (Azeng & Yogo, 2013; Jones & Tarp, 2015; Moore, 2015). A lot of literature and development studies already emphasise how agriculture-based interventions have direct poverty reduction effects and strong growth linkage effects on the rest of the economy (Thornton & Lipper, 2014; World Bank, 2009) (Table 1). However, it can be argued that to achieve sustainable development and reduce (youth) rural-to-urban migration, more emphasis should be placed on improving perceptions about agriculture and reducing the risks associated with agriculture. This is imperative, as some studies indicate that Africa’s youth are marginalised in terms of access to land, farm machinery, financial services and agricultural training (AGRA, 2015; FAO 2014a, 2014b), which increases their risks in engaging in agriculture/agribusiness as a career (i.e., agricultural risks deters Africa’s youth from venturing into commercial farming). On the other hand, people’s behaviour is mostly shaped by their perceptions of matters, rather than by the actual patterns of matters as measured by scientific methods (Bryan et al., 2013). Unfortunately, some studies point out that SSA’s rural youth are not willing to take agriculture as their main occupation because they have a negative perception about farming (i.e., they view farming as an occupation with low income and low economic returns, and they see farmers as uneducated and unskilled labourers) (MoFA, 2011).

Table 1.

The Effects of Growth in Agriculture on Poverty in Africa Compared with Growth in Other Sectors.

Agriculture	Effect	Indicator	Other Sectors
Growth in agricultural GDP per agricultural worker	is 2.9 times more effective	in increasing the average income of the poorest 20%	than growth in non-agricultural GDP.
A 1% increase in agricultural GDP per capita	is 2.7 times more effective	in reducing the 1-USD-a-day poverty rate	than growth in industry.
Agricultural GDP growth	is 2.9 times more effective	in reducing the 1-USD-a-day poverty rate	than growth in manufacturing.
A 1% increase in agricultural GDP	is 3 times more effective	in increasing household spending in the poorest households	than non-agricultural growth.
Agricultural GDP growth	is 4 times more effective	in reducing the 1-USD-a-day poverty rate	than non-agricultural growth.
Agricultural GDP growth	is 1.3 times more effective	in reducing the 2-USD-a-day poverty rate	than non-agricultural growth.

Source: Conceição et al. (2016).

Ajufo (2013) suggested that youth unemployment in Africa is partly a consequence of a mismatch between the skills of the youth and labour market demands, market failures and externalities. Youth unemployment may therefore possibly be addressed by instigating policies and strategies that prioritise developing a special focus on career guidance and counselling support in schools, and introducing entrepreneurship education into school curriculums. These measures should be complemented by promoting investments in agriculture, supporting entrepreneurial training and providing start-up capital to enable young school-leavers to become creators rather than seekers of jobs (Baah-Boateng, 2013). Arguably, the supply of youthful labour in Africa should be considered as an opportunity for enhancing entrepreneurship in the continent. First, Africa is food-insecure, as the continent has frequent production failures and food imports into Africa have exceeded exports since 2003 (AGRA, 2015; UNECA, 2013); hence, efforts to make Africa food-secure can create various employment opportunities in various agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Second, youth employment in Africa is a problem mainly caused by the focus of many people and the youth on wage jobs (Baah-Boateng, 2013; Jones & Tarp, 2015) and the focus of many climate change policies and agricultural development interventions being exclusively geared towards market integration, or away from dependency on agriculture, even though this leads to food insecurity (Milgroom & Giller, 2013). This consequently makes African countries miss out on the opportunities that are present in establishing productive and pro-poor ventures, especially in agriculture and its associated non-production-related value chain enterprises (i.e., complementary services and jobs in providing farming inputs like seeds and fertilisers, financial products, irrigation equipment, renewable-energy technologies, refrigeration, research and development, transport and distribution, information and communication technologies [ICT], access to markets, processing, storage, retailing, etc.) (AGRA, 2015).

Social Innovation Case Studies

Case 1: Ghana Youth in Agriculture Programme

The Government of Ghana introduced the YiAP in 2009 as a strategy to improve agricultural development and reduce youth unemployment in Ghana. The programme incentivised the youth’s entry into the agriculture sector by providing training and production resources (inputs and services) to the youth in the programme districts. The youth therefore had easy access to tractors, irrigation and mechanisation systems, quality planting materials (improved seeds), subsidised fertilisers, pesticides, extension information, technical support, marketing avenues, etc. (MoFA, 2009). The programme is recorded to have provided financial opportunities to 80,000 beneficiaries cultivating about 47,000 ha of land in 2009 and 2010 (Ohene, 2013). The YiAP may be considered innovative, as the government acquired land to establish block farms in various districts of Ghana so that the youth could share various tracts of land and resources that they could not access on their own. Through block farming, it was also easier for the government to easily provide inputs, technical services and financial services to the youth at subsidised prices (Ohene, 2013). All these factors therefore reduced the barriers for the youth to enter into farming and reduced most agricultural risks for them while creating new networks and institutions to support the youth and communities to create jobs and produce food.

Case 2: Mozambique Ingrower Programme

Ingrower is a profit-sharing agribusiness model wherein young entrepreneurs use pooled resources in order to achieve economies of scale for production, market access, financial support and technical support. The ingrower model is private-sector-led, and hence financiers provide equity investments, loans and grants to ingrower programmes in various countries in return for financial profit and social impact. Ingrower entrepreneurs are provided with training, production facilities, land, irrigation, capital, marketing and business support to reduce most agriculture business risks. Ingrower entrepreneurs run their own businesses inside an ingrower programme, and hence they produce independent business plans, budgets, book-keeping accounts and bank accounts, and profit from the production is shared 50/50 between the entrepreneurs and the ingrower programme implementers and financiers (DanishKnowHow, 2016).

Unemployment is caused not just by a lack of jobs (in developed and developing countries) but also by a lack of job skills due to inadequate training infrastructure and a lack of means to acquire relevant skills due to poverty and institutional bottlenecks. Consequently, even in developed countries, special interventions and initiatives are implemented by various agencies in order to reduce unemployment through skills development. For example, the European Social Fund was created to, among other things, facilitate the re-training of individuals in new skills for the jobs that were in demand, provide the youth with work-related skills that could lead to stable employment, support the establishment of social enterprises and facilitate the creation of microfinance programmes to improve access to capital for small businesses (European Commission, 2016). Ingrower programmes can therefore be seen as platforms for providing and developing new skills for unemployed African people, as they provide opportunities for hands-on business experience to run and develop an agribusiness within an established entrepreneurship and mentorship ecosystem. They can be seen to be creating economic opportunities in rural areas, as reports from the ingrower programme in Mozambique showed that some ingrower entrepreneurs reached a yearly gross profit of US$6,600.00, getting an income of about US$3,300.00 per year (DanishKnowHow, 2016). Such an income could be considered significant, as alternative job possibilities in the programme area were minimal and, in comparison, the salary of a field worker in Mozambique was US$1,500.00 per year (DanishKnowHow, 2016).

The Ghana YiAP and Mozambique ingrower programme may be considered as agricultural and entrepreneurial social innovations or business models founded on social innovation processes. According to Cajaiba-Santana (2014), typical outcomes of social innovation might be manifold, taking the form of new institutions, new social movements, new social practices or different structures of collaborative work. This can be attributed to social innovation processes having varied sources and social innovations assuming their form and being disseminated via the market (such as new services, business models, logistics and application concepts), via governmental guidelines and support, via intermediary and self-organised institutions, such as foundations, and via the effect of charismatic individuals or social entrepreneurs through change-oriented capacity-building (Cajaiba-Santana, 2014).

Not all types of agricultural development are equally effective in improving food security and promoting broad-based economic development, but science-based and employment-intensive agricultural growth provides the most effective way to kick-start growth, reduce poverty, enhance food availability and entitlements and accelerate human development (Conceição et al., 2016). Unlike other agricultural business models and poverty reduction strategies, the Ghana YiAP and Mozambique ingrower programme do not just aim to improve agricultural market linkages and improve supply links at minimal price and cost, but are also more holistic, as they are based on empowering people with various skills and have a focus on empowering the youth, women and other marginalised sectors of society to reduce social inequalities. This is particularly important in that unlike the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were criticised for improving the welfare of the relatively better off rather than those who were the most vulnerable and marginalised and widening rather than narrowing deprivations in some cases, through the SDGs, global leaders have made a commitment to ‘leave no one behind’ (i.e., global leaders have made a commitment that non-income-based inequalities will be tackled, that governments will attempt to ensure that marginalised groups make progress more quickly than the average and that development programmes will endeavour to reach the furthest behind first rather than picking off the low-hanging fruit) (Stuart & Woodroffe, 2016).

Even though both case studies/programmes have a significant bearing through indirectly addressing factors that induce migration and local climate change vulnerabilities such as youth unemployment and waning agricultural productivity, as caused by local-level structural problems in mobilising capital, land, technical expertise and production facilities, the programmes were developed to neither directly support the implementation of the SDGs nor enable local communities to sufficiently address their climate change vulnerabilities (through entrepreneurship and polycentric climate change governance). However, this study has shown that there could be merits in scaling up and replicating these models in more districts and more countries, as they have the potential to address a multitude of interconnected drivers of migration, poverty and climate change vulnerability in the context of SSA and can be implemented by non-governmental organizations, national governments and non-state actors. More importantly, these models can be adapted to create effective polycentric climate change governance systems whereby initiating a business or project based on either model in a particular district can enhance climate change resilience at the local level. Further, when all the pertinent businesses and projects in all districts are viewed at the national level, their cumulative impact on reducing climate change vulnerabilities and migration could be better than through monocentric climate change projects and programmes.

Discussion

In the context of SSA, understanding the links between climate change, unemployment and migration is important, since climate change can constrain agricultural development and food security, thereby perpetuating socio-economic inequalities and social conflicts (Dumenu & Obeng, 2016; Ghimire et al., 2015; van Wesenbeeck et al., 2016; Wong, 2016). Migration in SSA is partly a consequence of under-investments in the agriculture sector which perpetuate poverty. Historical evidence, through the implementation of the MDGs, shows that Africa as a whole did not meet MDG 1 of halving poverty and hunger. This situation occurred possibly because the continent’s total public spending on agriculture as a share of public spending fell far short of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP) target of 10 per cent (IFPRI, 2016). Additionally, Africa’s agriculture sector is much under-invested, and neither domestic aid nor foreign aid has increased appropriately to promote sustainable and resilient agriculture in SSA (aid to agriculture accounted for 22.5% of total aid to all sectors in 1979–1981, but this reduced to 6.0% in 2006–2008) (Huang & Wang, 2014). In contrast, Latin American countries achieved several of the MDGs, including the poverty and hunger goals, due to investments in their agricultural sectors, strong agricultural growth and expanded social safety nets (IFPRI, 2016; World Bank, 2009). Arguably, more investments in Africa’s agriculture sector and rural infrastructure can go a long way in ensuring that the SDGs are achieved, as comprehensive plans integrating climate change adaptation, agriculture development and rural development can simultaneously reduce poverty, inequality and migration. This can subsequently lead to the attainment of SDG 16, since socio-economic grievances, insufficient opportunities for people to earn livelihoods and a lack of broad-based economic growth are common sources of conflict and migrations.

Generally, most policymakers understand that anticipating future climate change impacts is problematic; hence, building resilience is key to reducing climate change–induced adverse impacts and migration, as doing so can make it possible for a system to deal with surprising and unexpected stress (Perez et al., 2015). However, the challenge is to find points of intervention in a system to increase its resilience to future changes, including unforeseeable ones (Perez et al., 2015). Arguably, promoting social entrepreneurship (i.e., the application of the entrepreneurial approach towards the primary goal of meeting societal goals) and institutional entrepreneurship (i.e., the effort to change institutions such as market regulations despite pressures towards stasis) (Schaltegger & Wagner, 2011) in SSA’s agricultural sector could provide good foundations or primary intervention areas to enhance climate change resilience. For example, it has been stated that one of the main differences between developing countries and developed countries in responding to climate change is that developed countries are likely to mitigate climate change problems through technological innovation and institutional redesign, whereas people in developing countries lack wealth and expertise and hence leave the affected areas or migrate when faced with severe environmental problems (Reuveny, 2007). However, as elaborated in the previous sections, knowledge on climate change can be increased and climate change risks in communities can be reduced through social innovation and the promotion of entrepreneurship activities in the agricultural sector. In this regard, social innovation and entrepreneurship can build the capacities of the youth and communities to redesign rural (formal and informal) institutions and this can eventually enable communities to have improved access to financial services and products, hybrid inputs, machinery, business management training, professional networks and extension services.

Some studies on climate change adaptation in the agricultural sector emphasise that crop production risks and poverty increases as climate parameters become highly unpredictable and unreliable (Elum et al., 2016; FAO, 2014a). However, this study has also highlighted that governments, non-governmental organizations and non-state actors can develop business models and programmes that can support the youth to develop their entrepreneurial skills and develop innovations in the agriculture sector as a means to reduce climate risks and facilitate the implementation of the SDGs. Additionally, the findings in this article support other literature that considers promoting entrepreneurship as a viable strategy to limit agricultural risks and enhance climate change resilience. For example, Jones & Tarp (2015) and Adenle et al. (2017) considered entrepreneurship and agribusiness development to be important factors that improved household welfare and employment creation, which could lead to increased circulation of cash in rural locations and raise the demand for non-agricultural goods and services, hence creating opportunities to shift to higher-returns activities. Moreover, the ingrower programme, in addition to being implemented in Mozambique, will also be replicated in Nigeria and Uganda. This arguably demonstrates the potential that innovative profit-sharing youth entrepreneurship agribusiness models have in creating employment and fostering rural development regardless of current and future crop production risks, and it supports notions, such as those of Dean and McMullen (2007), that through entrepreneurship, market failures and challenges can be turned into opportunities.

Of equal importance are also the assertions that an obstacle to entrepreneurship in SSA is that young entrepreneurs in the region over-report the shortage of finance and underestimate the lack of business skills as a barrier to entrepreneurship (Brixiova et al., 2015). However, the two business models/case studies demonstrate that some initiatives place an emphasis not only on the provision of finance to the youth and entrepreneurs but also on the provision of technical support to provide beneficiaries with knowledge that can enable them to create sustainable enterprises. The emphasis on skills development for young entrepreneurs is even more important, since other commentators have argued that financial investments and funding of projects and businesses in Africa is lagging not as a result of lack of availability of funding sources locally and internationally but because of lack of viable packaged and bankable projects (Afful-Koomson, 2015). This is substantiated by claims that Africa’s diaspora and migrant population have the potential to provide more than US$100 billion a year to help develop Africa, and there is also an estimated US$50 billion in diaspora savings that could be leveraged for low-cost project finance (Arezki & Brückner, 2012; Chirambo, 2017). Thus, with more agriculture-based youth entrepreneurship models, such as the YiaP and ingrower, and more emphasis on improving business skills, it can be argued, not only will there be a higher likelihood that more youth entrepreneurs will gain the competencies to develop bankable and investable enterprises that will improve their access to finance from various sources and attract substantial private sector investments in the agriculture sector, but they could also encourage more entrepreneurs to venture into the agriculture sector, as currently, despite the many positive impacts of the agriculture sector on poverty, economic growth and climate change resilience, many youth entrepreneurs prefer venturing into the retail or hospitality sector regardless of the low job growth potential in these sectors (Brixiova et al., 2015).

Conclusion

Entrepreneurship and social innovation processes can facilitate the development of new institutions and new social systems and practices that have the potential to improve perceptions about rural livelihoods and enhance climate change resilience. By combining entrepreneurship and social innovation, it may therefore be possible to reduce forced displacements, reduce conflict and facilitate responsible migration and mobility of people in SSA, as entrepreneurship and social innovation can address the determinants of climate change vulnerability and migration that are ignored in many climate change policies (the aspects that influence vulnerability and migration but are usually ignored or not addressed in many climate change programmes and policies include structural inequalities, power relations, local decision-making and access to resources by various individuals and households within a community). Additionally, rural poverty and climate change vulnerability are sometimes exacerbated by negative perceptions about farming and lack of training facilities to impart to the youth and other marginalised people strong agriculture-based entrepreneurial skills. However, by integrating agriculture-focused youth entrepreneurship programmes and business models in climate change and rural development strategies, non-governmental organizations, non-state actors and government agencies may be able to create development programmes that are apolitical and specific to the skills, education and resource constraints of a particular area, hence improving the implementation of SDG 16 and the principle of ‘leave no one behind’. Consequently, climate change policies in SSA that integrate youth entrepreneurship and rural-to-rural migration as a means to reduce climate change vulnerability may have better socio-economic outcomes than climate change policies that promote rural-to-urban migration and a dependency away from agriculture as a means to reduce climate change vulnerability.

Some research on climate change adaptation highlights that innovation is essential for addressing climate change, but technological innovation alone is insufficient to address climate change challenges; hence, there should be a greater focus on research, policy and practice in the area of (bottom-up) social innovation for climate change management (Bergman et al., 2010). According to Bergman et al. (2010), social innovation emerges from the interaction of less powerful actors and meets regulatory, institutional and resource barriers that its primary stakeholders have less ability to overcome. In this article, two entrepreneurship-focused agriculture sector models for addressing youth unemployment were analysed, and their potential to enhance climate change resilience through the entrepreneurship, innovation and climate change adaptation nexus was highlighted. The study highlighted how positioning youth entrepreneurs in structured agribusiness youth unemployment programmes and profit-sharing schemes can lead to better climate change resilience. Hence, arguably, the study supports theories and conceptualisations such as that of Bergman et al. (2010) that consider social innovation and the collaborative actions of innovative actors/entrepreneurs/sustainability entrepreneurs as more important than technological innovation to address climate change challenges.

In order to develop further the findings of this research, future studies may focus on how social innovation may be used to encourage more female entrepreneurs to enter the agriculture sector. This follows the observation that even in some instances where women in certain communities were provided with equal access to land, financial services and technologies as men, their participation in agricultural entrepreneurial activities was below that of men (Ohene, 2013).

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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