The Entrepreneur - Cameroon's Premier Economic & Business Journal

The Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial “Suicide”

To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be extremely passionate about your dream. Passion is what makes you persevere long enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Doing the right things may ensure that you fare well. What if we slip and are unable to recognize the Judases? Or we just take things for granted and drift away from reality? So, for a change lets look at the factors that will kill our dream. Hopefully if we learn to avoid these pitfalls like the pestilence then we will be on the way to an exciting business life...Ten Commandments

Business Schools, Opportunities Rise in Africa

After spending more than a decade working in product development for Oceanic Bank in Nigeria, Henry Obike wanted to broaden his business skills and get an executive MBA in hopes of someday starting his own company. With few high-quality local options, Obike, 37, decided to apply to Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass, more than 5,000 miles from his job, wife, and four children.Then he heard about a new Executive MBA program set up in Accra, Ghana, by the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS Full-Time MBA Profile), known as CEIBS, a top-ranked international business school whose main campus is in the Pudong district of Shanghai. The CEIBS Ghana program was an instant sell for Obike, who joined its first class in the spring of 2009. Every two months, he and nine Nigerian executives fly to Ghana for eight days of classes taught by CEIBS professors in a building on Independence Avenue, amid Accra's thriving central business district. Says Obike: "It's the Harvard of Africa. Me and other Nigerians are really trying hard to take advantage of this opportunity because there's no other school like it .....More

Crocodile farming seen as new revenue stream for residents

“Crocodiles do not have a hard rule on maintenance and they can survive harsh conditions. If farmers realised that they can generate more income through the reptiles then they might change their perspective on them,” “Wildlife farming has the potential to enhance the livelihoods of poor farmers,”...The farmers can also export crocodile skin to lucrative markets like Europe where there used to make luxury products like handbags and belts...Commercial crocodile farming has been successful in countries like Australia, Thailand and Malaysia....More

Nouakchott Declaration on Entrepreneurship and Youth Employment in North Africa

By Sirri A. Ngwa

A regional workshop on ‘Entrepreneurship and Youth Employment in North Africa’ was held in Nouakchott, Mauritania on 13-14 June 2011. It was hosted by the Mauritanian National Agency for the Promotion of Youth Employment (ANAPEJ) and the African Capacity Building Foundation in collaboration with the Mauritanian Center for Policy Analysis (CMAP). Over two days of plenary sessions and debates, delegates representing public employment agencies from North and sub-Saharan Africa, international organizations, partner institutions as well as youth representatives shared their experiences on entrepreneurship and youth employment. Contributors agreed on the need to include the issue of employment, notably youth employment, as an essential dimension in national development policies; and the also creation of public-private partnerships to promote of entrepreneurship and youth employment in consultation with social partners and the youth. Read Full Declaration

The State of Entrepreneurship in (South) Africa

Entrepreneurship in Africa not only tethers the fine line of risk and profit, but it is an important laboratory to test the inherent characteristic of a true call given the uneven playing field. With the urgency to create millions of jobs for Africa’s teeming school leavers, small business and entrepreneurship is now a hot topic. While this is required to create jobs, presidents, ministers and big business have begun to realize that these heroes on the ground are the true catalysts of national economic growth. However, for Africa’s entrepreneurs to take their pride of place, policies are required to nurture this culture to set the goal-getters and profit-seeking wealth-creating moguls apart from their perennial on-looking peers and also to allow them move quicker and be more innovative to create the jobs that the continent needs. So, what are the challenges of entrepreneurship in Africa? South Africa with a relatively fairly developed economy in the continent, is an interesting case for the uphill trajectory of a budding entrepreneur in Africa... More

How the youth can bridge generation gap in business

You could start a business, lasso funding and already have top-tier clients, but, because you’re young, some people still won’t take you seriously. What’s worse, some may even try to take advantage of your youth....From the initial purchase transaction to setting up accounts with vendors, we learned quickly to be on guard from people who assumed we didn’t have to be taken seriously or that they could “play” us because of our youth...One situation that stands out happened when we were hiring a contractor to perform renovations for the bar. The first guy we contacted for a bid met with me at the pool hall...He had sized me up as young and naïve, before I even opened my mouth. After asking me to get my boss, he was clearly surprised —- and a little amused, if I’m not mistaken— when I told him that it was me...More

Africa SMME Award 2011

Small, medium or micro enterprise (SMME) may be recognised as the Africa SMME of the Year. This is opened for businesses that have grown in a responsible and sustainable manner over the last few years and are contributing to the African and local economy. The competition is open to businesses from all sectors and the ultimate honour will be to achieve the overall award for the SMME of the Year. The entry criteria includes businesses that mploy less than the full time equivalent of 200 persons and must have a turnover ranging between R40 000 and R10 million per annum, should be registered in Africa, are in active operation for at least two years, and not a branch of another business. Winners will take the spotlight at a gala awards evening in South Africa on October 13, 2011 at the Gold Reef City Hotel in Gauteng Province, South Africa. Download Entry Form

© The Entrepreneur Newspaper 2011. All Rights Reserved

By John Kageche

...It is unrealistic to expect a government to consistently generate jobs commensurate to the secondary and tertiary graduates joining the labour market...In any case, expecting a government to offer all the solutions only serves to develop a culture of dependency. How can our education create a mentality of abundance in our students, and not one of scarcity? We must start approaching education as meant for empowerment not employment; for life, not examination. This way even as the student progresses through life she is being filled with the possibility of opportunities that exist for her, and not just the one: “go to school, pass your exams, get to university and get a job”...Among the ways this would be achieved is by appealing to their emotional part of the brain and inculcating character traits which we discover in our adult life as intrinsic to success, yet sadly are not captured in the education curriculum: confidence, high self esteem, belief in self, focus, positive attitude, setting and achieving goals, to name a few; in tandem with this would be entrepreneurship as a way of life...Many are the university and college graduates, with a degree or six-month certificate, who expect the paper earned to work for them...Personal development has been narrowed to only getting another certificate, yet this is only intellectual development, and requires commensurate emotional development to give it substance...More

Time to Teach and Nurture Entrepreneurial Traits in Our Communities

Entrepreneurship Development is A Must

Entrepreneurship plays significant roles in economic growth and small business success. However, one of the major challenges in the private sector of many developing countries such as Cameroon and in sub-Saharan Africa is the lack of successful business development. At the critical stage of their development path, these countries require businesses that withstand not only the challenges in production, distribution and marketing, but also create employment for a growing population. Although entrepreneurial traits are inherent in some persons, entrepreneurship can be taught to encourage and enable the creation and development of small business. In this essay, Ning Ernestine Nnam x-rays the need and path to nurture entrepreneurship and promote wealth creation through private enterprise and hands-on business development.

Download:  Entrepreneurship Development Needs

© The Entrepreneur Newspaper 2010. All Rights Reserved .

Promoting young IT entrepreneurs in Ghana

Overlooking the Gulf of Guinea from the heart of the old center of Accra is a six-story concrete building that looks perfectly anonymous to the outside world. In fact, one would never suspect that more than a dozen start-up companies are occupying the entire top floor of the building, a meandering 9000 sq feet of office space that includes two IT laboratories, a lecture hall, conference and library facilities and an office for each business. A systems analyst and former KPMG senior consultant, Solomon Asante Dartey heads the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Centre (GMIC) that has been providing space, training and equipment to lift these start-up companies onto the national IT market. “Thanks to Ghana’s education system, there is a lot of talent around”, says Dartey. “We identify that talent and help to build the skills of young people so that they can go out there and get some jobs,” he adds.[See More]