Cultivating home-grown solutions driven by locally embedded entrepreneurs
We are dedicated to advance understanding regarding how entrepreneurship can effectively tackle societal challenges and foster sustainable development, both within Africa and on a global scale. Through our core projects (outlined below), we develop a data-and-dialogue driven entrepreneurial ecosystem approach to better achieve sustainable development.
The African continent, with its burgeoning and youthful population, presents abundant entrepreneurial opportunities, particularly amidst the anticipated expansion of African consumer markets. However, unlocking this potential hinges on well-functioning entrepreneurial ecosystems—a set of interdependent actors and factors that are governed in such a way that they enable productive entrepreneurship.
Despite Africa’s abundant natural resources and vast arable land, the African continent has the lowest levels of wellbeing (including the lowest incomes and the highest unemployment rates) and faces huge societal challenges. Root causes can be found in institutional weaknesses, driving unproductive or even destructive entrepreneurship, trapping societies in vicious cycles.
Our research delves into the mechanisms underlying development traps, but also virtuous cycles of entrepreneurship and development. The emphasis of the initiative is on cultivating home-grown solutions driven by locally embedded entrepreneurs, that contributes to sustainable development in Africa and across the globe.