Expert says entrepreneurship not silver bullet for fighting poverty

NaijaAgroNet:

 

As the Global Entrepreneurship Week, the world’s largest campaign to promote entrepreneurs, comes to a close an academic from The University of Manchester warns that entrepreneurship shouldn’t be a silver bullet for fighting poverty, reports NaijaAgroNet.

According to Dr Nicola Banks from The University of Manchester is an ESRC Future Research Leader (The Economic and Social Research Council) who is leading on research into young people's experiences of urban poverty in Tanzania, this kind of definition negates the spirit of entrepreneurship.

She told NaijaAgroNet in a press statement made available by Kath Paddison, Media Relations Officer, The University of Manchester that the world should be wary of solutions that focus on entrepreneurship as a silver bullet for fighting poverty.

“Entrepreneurship can be a way to help young people out of poverty, but a sole focus on entrepreneurship can put all the responsibility on the young person and removes responsibility from governments,” she said.

Dr Bank also pointed that as the popular TV show The Apprentice illustrates, “we're not all born with entrepreneurial skill.  Multilateral agencies and national governments need to address the full range of obstacles facing young people to adequately support the world’s growing population of young people.” 

Isaac Oyimah
+Remmy Nweke +enterpreneurs us +The University of Manchester  
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Obasanjo expresses fear over youths’ unemployment in Nigeria

Chief Obasanjo

The former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed fears that a time will come when Nigeria will witness a revolution if government fails to address youths’ unemployment and poverty.

Speaking recently at the West African regional conference on youth employment in Dakar, Senegal the former president said the growing rate of unemployment among youths is alarming that the effects can only be imagined.

He asserted that there is absence of serious, concrete, realistic, short and long term solution to youth unemployment. He revealed that the youth employment rate which was at 72 per cent in 1999 was reduced to 52 per cent in 2004 and as at 2011 was at 71 per cent again.

Incentives to be created by national leaders according to Obasanjo should include a special attention to agriculture business as against mere farming.

Obasanjo said there is need for easy access to land and micro credit, and the need to review the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) in order to accommodate issues around youth unemployment and job creation.

He also advocated the review of school curriculum to enable undergraduates spend additional one year to learn entrepreneurship.

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