Not all African countries in the AEE Index
The researchers were not able to fully map all 54 African countries. For the missing countries, they have not been able to collect enough data to construct the index. That depends on all kinds of context-bound factors, and in general there is still a lot to be done to get the data infrastructure in place for the whole continent, according to Stam. Such data collection has also not been done in Africa before,’ he says. ‘It is probable, though, that countries that are not in it like Chad and the Central African Republic, for example, have a lower quality ecosystem than the 27 countries for which we have complete data
.
Annual index
How will it progress? The AEE Index was launched at the Global Entrepreneurship Conference (13 and 14 March in Cape Town, South Africa), which included a policy-focused workshop attended by several ministers, secretaries of state and policymakers as well as a research workshop, which focused mainly on how the index came about, and how it could be further improved.
It is planned that the index will be repeated every year. Not only to make the data public for academic use, but certainly also to make the data increasingly user-friendly, so that they can be used to further improve the conditions for entrepreneurship, by governments, investors and entrepreneurs themselves. It’s a great start to a very positive narrative
, Stam says.