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Case Study

by Rashid Mwinyi | November 2019

Entrepreneurship as a livelihoods program strategy

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ABOUT YOUTH LEAD & THE LIVELIHOODS CASE STUDY SERIES

A primary goal of the Youth Lead program’s first phase, implemented by the International Youth Foundation (IYF) with support from Irish Aid, was to develop meaningful youth livelihood program models and engagement practices through a youth-led research and co-design process. This goal was achieved through a research and leadership-focused fellowship program (Kiongozi Fellowship), complemented by field research conducted in three regions of Tanzania.

The Kiongozi Fellowship was a six-month program that engaged young people as partners in research, program design, and strategy development. The 2019 Fellows (five women and four men) ranged in age from 23 to 27 years old and represented seven regions of Tanzania. Over the course of the fellowship period, Kiongozi Fellows conducted primary and secondary research to develop case studies on specific livelihoods program strategies and provide recommendations on youth engagement. Their work included a combination of examining existing youth livelihoods programs, collecting data and statistics to better understand the livelihoods context in Tanzania, interviewing key stakeholders, and leading focus group discussions with other young people to gain additional perspectives and insights.

This is one of nine case studies, each of which focused on one of the following program strategies: access to health care, career fairs, career guidance, entrepreneurship training, information & communications technology (ICT), life skills training, peer networks, social entrepreneurship, and vocational training. Each of these types of interventions can play a critical role in supporting young Tanzanians in their journey to sustainable livelihoods.

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BACKGROUND

Ummi Shaib, a young female graduate from Zanzibar, like so many other young people in Tanzania, struggled and spent years to find a job after graduation. Faced with multiple job searches and continuous rejection, Ummi succumbed to her family’s demands that would make her dream of becoming a social worker expire.

With no hope to find a job opportunity that would make her ends meet, Ummi agreed to get married, and a year after her marriage she gave birth to her first child. With insufficient support from her husband, Ummi started to volunteer as a community mobilizer to earn small stipends.

It was during this time that Ummi got an opportunity to attend a 5-days training on Entrepreneurship and Youth Saving and Lending Schemes provided by Feed the Future Tanzania Advancing Youth, a USAID-funded project to connect youth with agribusiness opportunities through entrepreneurship skills training and support.

The entrepreneurship training that Ummi got provided her with skills and necessary tools to put her ideas into action. “This training was about promoting my self-emancipation and confidence, before this I had 100 business ideas, but I didn’t know which one to pursue,” says Ummi.

After being trained, Ummi realized what resources she has and how she can put those resources into a better use for building her business and make a living (USAID, 2018).

The Challenge The recent census (URT, 2012) shows that youth in Tanzania are 34.7% of the whole population. High and persistent rates of unemployment remain one of the key challenges for youth in Tanzania. This problem is characterized by the shortage or lack of employment or job opportunities in urban areas, and under-utilization of the majority of the national labor force in the rural areas.

The World Bank has reported that around 800,000 young people enter the country’s job market annually, competing for only 50,000 to 60,000 formal sector jobs created each year, resulting in high number of unemployed youth. Results from the Integrated Labor Force Survey (2014) indicate that the overall youth unemployment rate in Tanzania is 11.7%.

Entrepreneurship is being perceived as a savior in tackling the growing youth unemployment challenge in Tanzania. Efforts to empower youth with entrepreneurship skills are being showcased by many programs. Most of these interventions provide youth with theoretical entrepreneurship skills trainings

“Entrepreneurship is often touched as the silver bullet for Africa’s youth employment

challenge. If we can strengthen small businesses, they will create jobs, and more

young people will find dignified work.”

African Management Initiative

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that focus on basic entrepreneurship principles, yet are not enabling youth trained on entrepreneurship to start their businesses.

The existing entrepreneurship skills training lacks practical learning experiences that empower youth with the tools and resources required to turn their ideas into a realized business venture. These trainings are not experiential enough to enable youth to experience the real business world and equip them with capabilities to walk through the entrepreneurial path as an alternative to both formal and informal sectors employment. Other challenges are shown in the figure below:

Source: FXBT Health, 2019

10.6%

6.1%

9.6%

6.6%

9.1%

3.0%

9.6%

2.0%

2.5%

5.1%

23.2%

12.6%

0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0%

Lack of or shortage of adequate initial capital

Difficulty finding good location and or premises for startingown business

Unaffordable cost of marketing

Lack of confidence

Lack of personal drive to get started

Lack of family support

Lack of entrepreneurship skills

Congested with social problems

Norms & beliefs

Lack of personal life skills

Lack of business skills

Policies and procedures that make it difficult to register orformally start a business

Survey respondents disaggregated by mentioned barriers or challenges experienced by youth in securing and sustaining self-

employment

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The Solution The goal of the entrepreneurship skills training strategy is empowering Tanzanian youth to build entrepreneurial mindsets and equip them with tools and resources that will enable them to put their ideas into action through access to experiential learning and tools that are required in developing potential entrepreneurship engagement among youth in Tanzania.

This strategy suggests a practice-based approach to entrepreneurship skills training that is governed by four pillars. These pillars transform entrepreneurial skills training into a practical roadmap for youth to achieve the goal of establishing and managing businesses after the training.

According to the African Management Institute (2019) the strategy pillars are as follows:

Business diagnosis: The entrepreneurship courses should not be uniform to every type of entrepreneur. This new approach gives an opportunity for every entrepreneur to develop their unique entrepreneurial roadmap by selecting key practices that are critical to business success and empowering entrepreneurs to adopt these practices as per individual needs and conditions.

Access to tools: The strategy transforms the learning approach from theory-based content learning to practical adoption of the entrepreneurial tools needed to develop business models and practices. These include tools for keeping financial records, customer metrics, business projections and can be accessed by entrepreneurs at any time.

Peer learning: The strategy provides entrepreneurs the opportunity to learn from their peers. Participants in the training program can be organized into smaller accountability and support groups and hold each other accountable through their entrepreneurial journey by sharing best practices and giving each other constructive feedback.

Data: Using data to track core business metrics will enable entrepreneurs to track changes in their businesses and focus on improving critical business areas. This gives entrepreneurs the ability to control their business operations, maintain their markets, and improve key business practices by measuring success and making data-driven decisions.

The strategy has been proven to work well. Participants of the programs using this approach report an average business improvement rate of 75% according to the survey conducted by African Management Initiative (2019).

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Theory of Change: Entrepreneurship Programming Activities Results

• Provide entrepreneurship skills training to young people.

• Provide seed funding to start-ups. • Mentor and coach entrepreneurs. • Form peer learning groups

• Young people have entrepreneurship skills, an entrepreneurial mindset, and can put their ideas into action.

• Young people have capital to start/develop their businesses, and thus can increase their income and achieve financial prosperity.

• Young people gain experience, engage in collaborative learning, and gain reassurance, resources, and connections.

• Young people share best practices, hold each other accountable for success, provide constructive feedback, and expand their network.

Assumptions

• Young people are willing to attend training and capable of grasping and working on lessons learned.

• Organizations are capable of identifying talented young entrepreneurs. • Youth can access tools and financial resources and possess financial

management skills. • Mentors are trained and equipped to provide quality coaching; young people are

receptive to advice/instruction. • There are successful young entrepreneurs who are willing to share their

experiences/best practices and have an appropriate platform for peer learning and are capable of applying the lessons they learn.

NOTEWORTHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM EXAMPLES

Eqwip Hubs, 2015-2019

Key Partners Funded by Youth Challenge International and implemented in partnership with the Vocational Education and Training Authority (VETA) – Zanzibar, Institute of Rural Development and Planning (IRDP), and Tumaini University, Dar-es-Salaam Campus.

Program Overview

Eqwip Hubs expect the following outcomes: • Having youth who have entrepreneurship mindsets; • Having youth with viable and sustainable businesses; • Having youth who are employable in the labor market.

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Eqwip Hubs (continued)

Key Activities

• Youth undergo three months of entrepreneurship and employability skills training.

• The program recruits high expertise volunteers from Canada to lead the trainings.

• Upon graduation youth are given grants to kick off their business venture through youth innovation fund.

• Youth are connected with other suitable entrepreneurship stakeholders within the particular area.

Target Beneficiaries

The project is implemented in Dar-es-Salaam, Mwanza and Zanzibar. The project is implemented in urban areas, but some participants are from rural areas. The project focuses on youth aged 15-to-35 with a minimum requirement of a secondary education level.

Community Perspectives

“When youth have access to a steady income there is a ripple effect of positive change. For 25 years we have witnessed the forward-thinking ways young people build an income and enhance their lives.” https://www.yci.org/about/our-way/ “I had never thought that one day I will be a successful entrepreneur. The entrepreneurship skills training that I got from Eqwip Hubs capacitated me to put my ideas into action. Now I am a successful entrepreneur and I can reach very far” --Program participant

Feed the Future Tanzania Advancing Youth (AY), 2017-2022

Key Partners DAI (lead implementer and leadership component), USAID (funder), SNV (entrepreneurship component), Pathfinder International (life skills component), Khanga Rue Media (communications).

Program Overview AY seeks to connect young entrepreneurs with the skills, mentorship, tools and finance they require to establish and grow their businesses.

Key Activities

• Youth are trained with entrepreneurship skills and establish YSLA. • Youth are helped to formalize their businesses. • Youth are given start-up kits like sewing machines, computers, welding

machines etc. • Youth are connected with the market via exhibitions. • Youth are mentored and coached on their businesses.

Target Beneficiaries

• The project is implemented in Iringa, Mbeya and Zanzibar. • Iringa and Mbeya activities are implemented in rural communities and in

Zanzibar they are implemented in both rural and urban communities. • The project focuses on youth aged 15-to-35, both in school and out-of-school.

The selection of the beneficiaries is 60% females and 40% males.

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Feed the Future Tanzania Advancing Youth (continued)

Community Perspectives

“If young people will be deciding to engage on entrepreneurship at an early stage and do activities to increase their income, they will contribute to Tanzanian development” -Technical Program Coordinator – Zanzibar “The entrepreneurship skills training which I got from Feed the Future Tanzania Advancing Youth enabled me to have better knowledge on how to mobilize resources and kick off my own business venture. I was also taught the better way of managing finances and now I am leading two YSLAs.” -Khairat Suleiman

Cube Innovation Space, 2018-to date Organization Overview

Cube Zanzibar is a start-up business enabler. Among others, they receive funding from the Milele Zanzibar Foundation and D-Tree International.

Program Overview

Cube Zanzibar targets the following outcomes: • Trained youth have successfully launched their businesses; • Trained youth have access to loans and/or receive loan application assistance; • Trained youth are connected to highly qualified and experienced mentors.

Key Activities

• Program activities—three-phased entrepreneurship program portfolio: ideation, incubation and acceleration.

• Financing—short-term, interest-free loans provided through a revolving seed fund. Participants also receive assistance with commercial bank loan applications and/or other alternative lender options.

• Business administration support—direct support from Cube is provided to participants for registration, finance, administration and other everyday challenges.

Target Beneficiaries The program is implemented in urban areas of Zanzibar and focuses on youth aged 15-to-35 both in school and out-of-school.

Community Perspectives

“Entrepreneurship is not a game of losers and it is also not an easy game where anybody can enter and win. Youth need to have self-determination and self-determination is something within themselves and not outside. Youth should think hard, work tirelessly, and find what really motivates them to achieve more. Youth can read a thousand books and attend thousands of motivational speeches, but unless they have something motivate them first, they will not be motivated.” --Said Seif, Director, Cube Zanzibar “As a young entrepreneur, Cube Zanzibar gave me skills to strategically define and illustrate the root source of any idea and pitch it to an international stage.” --Mohammad Msoma, program participant

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WHAT WORKS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAMMING

Comprehensive curriculum: Factors that have worked well in entrepreneurship skills training include the combination of theoretical and technical components of the curricula whereby a trainee is provided with training on basic entrepreneurship skills and then undergoes technical training on a particular aspect of entrepreneurship such as poultry, arts and crafts, horticulture, tourism, technology, fashion and design and then a trainee is empowered to turn his/her technical expertise into a business venture.

Highly skilled staff: For this strategy to work well, recruitment of trainers who are well experienced on various entrepreneurial aspects is essential. These experts will share their best knowledge, tools and practices to youth who are undergoing entrepreneurship skills training. Eqwip Hubs program seemed to work well as it involves local and international entrepreneurship professionals to the program.

Post-training business support and funding: Start-up kits and youth savings and loan association (YSLA) mechanisms enable youth trained in entrepreneurship to navigate their startup or business growth challenges successfully. Therefore, access to startup kits and micro funding opportunities after training can expand the impact of entrepreneurship skills training programs.

Youth who have been trained on entrepreneurship skills should not be left after the training period has ended. Access to after-training services, such as mentoring, coaching, connection to financial institutions, and business development support providers, as well as market linkage, are necessary for business ventures of the youth trained to thrive.

WHAT DOES NOT WORK IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAMMING

Lack of disability-friendly activities and infrastructure: Some of the areas that proved not to work well in the implementation of entrepreneurship service training include lack of proper infrastructure and facilities that provide easy access of entrepreneurship skills training to people with disabilities. Most of the training programs do not consider including sign language experts, tools for blind participants, and conducting training in easily accessible environments for people with physical disabilities.

Lack of emphasis on financial management skills and youth-friendly loan products: Programs do train and connect youth with financial institutions, but they have failed to build the capacity of their trainees to tackle challenges from financial institutions while accessing funds. These challenges include lack of collaterals, building credit-worthy ventures, and poor financial management.

Differences in curricula and approach: Differentiation in terms of content, timeline and tools expose some youth to different entrepreneurship approaches and hence create inconsistencies in entrepreneurship practices among youth trained. For example, some trainings are conducted for just a few days, which does not give the trainees enough knowledge on entrepreneurship or time to practice

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what they learn. The best approach is to have curricula which have the same content, time and tools. Then, changes can be made depending on the level of the entrepreneurs or the businesses.

Structural and Procedural Barriers Youth are also facing both structural and procedural barriers that hinder the successful outcomes of entrepreneurship skills training. These include:

• The lack of an entrepreneurship policy in Tanzania leads to the inexistence of a framework that supervises entrepreneurial development including regulated training curricula, startup development, access to entrepreneurial tools, and resources.

• Excessive taxation for startup entrepreneurs hinders their ability to build and grow business ventures at the early stage. The lack of a tax haven mechanism for startup entrepreneurs does not incentivize youth to start businesses after undergoing entrepreneurship training.

• Procedures associated with access to credit affect youth’s abilities to obtain and use loans and other financial products necessary to facilitate their businesses growth. Their lack of the collateral required in bank lending and excessive interest rates are major barriers for young entrepreneurs’ access to finance.

• The assumption that youth have financial management skills is not totally true. This is because many young people lack important financial discipline as well as the financial management acumen required to manage their businesses and keep their financial records, something that is a prerequisite for accessing loans from finance institutions.

WHY LIVELIHOODS PROGRAMMING IN TANZANIA SHOULD USE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

This strategy provides a linkage between entrepreneurship skills training with business startup and development after training. It suggests important components to be addressed in the programming of youth livelihood activities, especially entrepreneurship and business, by emphasizing the need for certified curricula and experienced trainers. The strategy provides guidance on integrating basic entrepreneurial concepts with technical entrepreneurship skills to enable beneficiaries to transform their knowledge, skills and ideas into action.

It has provided a solution to improving the inclusion of young women and people with disabilities by identifying their challenges and prospective opportunities.

The strategy has profiled and benchmarked best practices from various entrepreneurship skills training opportunities and challenges in Tanzania, then identified key areas that need improvement or could have been better implemented in terms of skills development, business startup, decision making, access to credit and provision of entrepreneurship supporting services to youth trained.

It has identified key actors and their respective roles in youth livelihood and entrepreneurship ecosystems for the organizations working on youth livelihood to leverage their activities programming.

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For this strategy to benefit most of young people in Tanzania it should focus on both in-school and out-of-school youth. Also, it should provide both theoretical and experiential learning pathways to enable youth livelihood development organizations to design and implement programs that train youth to become business owners.

HOW ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAMMING SHOULD BE TAILORED TO THE TANZANIAN

CONTEXT

For this strategy to attain maximum impact in the Tanzanian context it should include the following elements:

It should be tailored to training youth from 15-to-35 years from both rural and urban settings. There should be a deliberate effort to ensure that 55% of the beneficiaries be females in order to provide opportunities for young women to participate in livelihood development activities that can ensure their increased income, assets ownership and capabilities in decision making.

The recruitment of young people with disabilities should be 3% of all beneficiaries regardless of their gender. This raises the need to ensure that infrastructures that facilitate learning for people with disabilities are put in place.

Strategic partnerships between government agencies, vocational training institutions, development partners, and organizations implementing youth livelihood programs should be enhanced, and government institutions should facilitate policy aspects and mechanisms to tackle procedural barriers in youth livelihood while vocational training institutions should work on approval and accreditation of entrepreneurship and other livelihood development training programs. Development partners’ roles will be funding the programs while NGOs and other private sector organizations implement youth livelihood activities.

To have greater impact, ICT usage can be leveraged for developing skills on innovation and building digital business ventures, especially to urban beneficiaries. Also, ICT can be used as a tool to support livelihood development activities such as product manufacturing, sales and marketing, communication and distribution.

Livelihood programming should be youth-centered, whereby youth are fully engaged in the design and implementation of the programs. To ensure full engagement, implementers should include youth in programs planning and train them as peer facilitators. Livelihood programs can engage youth more as advisers through the creation of youth advisory committees and as qualified staffs who are directly working with their peers.

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Source: FXBT Health, 2019

The above figure shows how both young women and young men can be reached based on their daily community engagement activities.

Key Stakeholders for Entrepreneurship Programming in Tanzania Stakeholder Role(s) Key Activities

National government Putting down policy framework to empower entrepreneurship skills training in Tanzania.

Supporting training initiatives and sponsoring entrepreneurs by providing working space and funding as grants or loans.

Youth Utilizing the services designed for the implementation of the strategy.

Participating in the training provided by implementing organizations.

International NGOs or Community Based Organizations (CBOs)

Implementing youth entrepreneurship training projects.

Designing, implementing and evaluating the entrepreneurship skills training intervention.

Private Sector Providing platforms for the practical application of entrepreneurship skills training.

Providing access to internship and other support services to entrepreneurs, like formal and informal credits.

4.4%0.0%

5.6%0.0%

0.6%1.1%1.1%

32.2%2.8%

0.6%3.3%3.3%

5.0%10.6%

11.7%6.1%

9.4%

0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0% 30.0% 35.0%

FarmingFishing

Livestock keepingTourism

MiningBuilding

VolunteeringBusiness/ entrepreneurship

Advocacy/ activismProviding health services

Arts for community developmentICT for community development

Sports for community developmentEnvironment management or protection

Teaching/ educatingWomen’s empowerment

Other*

Survey respondents disaggregated by community development activities they are currently involved in

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Stakeholder Role(s) Key Activities

Universities Providing business and entrepreneurship education.

Providing training on business ideation, business planning, business growth, financial management, communication skills, decision making, and strategic thinking.

Innovation and Incubation Hubs

Taking start-ups from idea to business.

Accelerating the growth of a start-up through a compilation of support services including, for example, office space, capital, training, and networking possibilities, with a main goal of producing successful start-ups that will be financially viable and self-supporting.

Vocational Training Authority Providing accreditation of entrepreneurship skills training resources.

Reviewing curricula and training materials to ensure the provision of standard entrepreneurship skills training.

DATA SOURCES & METHODOLOGY

This case study was developed by using both primary and secondary data. Primary data was obtained through a field study which involved visiting three organizations implementing entrepreneurship skills training to young people in Tanzania and interviewing the responsible staff together with the beneficiaries of the programs at a separate time.

Secondary data was obtained by reviewing relevant books, journals, articles, reports and official publications; hence the facts were presented to substantiate the arguments.

Two focus group discussions with ten participants each were conducted with youth of different origins and different backgrounds. The study used simple random sampling to select the participants of the focus group discussions in order to provide an equal chance of any member being selected.

Works Cited

African Management Initiative, “Entrepreneurship training is broken. Now what?” May 8, 2019,

https://africanmanagersblog.org/2019/05/08/entrepreneurship-training-is-broken-now-

what/?fbclid=IwAR2Tet5OF3mPyBlNvroByNJ3be6oiMvDsIZn3oBk0ZW1I3WlvrSwoSTHX1o.

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FXBT Health (2019), Factors Affecting Tanzanian Male and Female Youth Livelihoods, Employability and Youth Engagement in Policy and Program Design and Implementation. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

URT (2014), Integrated Labor Force Survey

URT (2012), National Entrepreneurship Training Framework (NETF)

URT (2012), Population and Housing census Report, Dar es Salaam Tanzania

USAID (2018), What Works in Entrepreneurship Education and Training Programs for Youth? Evidence Report. https://www.usaid.gov/results-data/success-stories/cassava-crisps-provide-path-financial-inclusion

Works Consulted

“About Eqwip Hubs,” Accessed on August 12, 2019 https://www.eqwiphubs.org/.

“A practice-based approach for entrepreneurs,” Modified on May 08, 2019. https://africanmanagersblog.org/2019/05/08/entrepreneurship-training-is-broken-now-what/?fbclid=IwAR2qxsvn3ExwnlAuJtZfg1IobSu8r0WyYMIBSPz68WUcBvNWGNRDG-uZSYM. “What We Do,” Cube Zanzibar, Accessed on August 05, 2019, https://www.cubezanzibar.com.

Additional Resources • CubeZanzibar Website

• Cube Zanzibar Facebook

• EqwipHubs Website

• EqwipHubs Facebook

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rashid Mwinyi Rashid

Zanzibar, Tanzania

rashid.mwinyi@gmail.com

Rashid Mwinyi, 27, is an enthusiastic and passionate leader and activist working to empower other young people through providing support and counseling on various youth issues. Born and raised in Zanzibar, he is a Chairperson of the Pamoja Youth Initiative, an NGO with the mission of strengthening Zanzibari youth involvement and participation in positive social change and community development, and a member of Feed the Future Tanzania Advancing Youth Advisory Council, advising the implementation of youth empowerment projects funded by USAID and focused on income generation through agribusiness.

Rashid earned a bachelor’s degree in Development Economics from Mwalimu Nyerere Memorial Academy. Prior to his work with Pamoja Youth Initiative, he cofounded the Home Talent Learning Foundation, an NGO dedicated to providing educational support to the community. As a key staff member, Rashid has spent more than five years establishing English programs that promote English language literacy among students of different levels.

Rashid also works as Programs Lead (Volunteer) at Cube Zanzibar, a start-up and business enabler that offers a range of support services. In this role he organizes and facilitates entrepreneurship training programs for young entrepreneurs and small businesses based in Zanzibar.

As a Kiongozi Fellow, Rashid focused his research on the role of entrepreneurship skills in youth livelihoods programming.

This case study was made possible with support from Irish Aid and the International Youth Foundation (IYF). The findings and recommendations are

the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of Irish Aid or IYF.

ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL YOUTH FOUNDATION

The International Youth Foundation® (IYF®) stands by, for, and with young people. Founded in 1990 through a generous grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, IYF is a global nonprofit with programs

directly benefiting 7.7 million young people and operations spanning 100 countries so far. Together with local community-based organizations and a network of corporate, foundation, and multilateral partners,

we connect young people with opportunities to transform their lives. We believe that educated, employed, engaged young people possess the power to solve the world’s toughest problems, and we focus our youth development efforts on three linked objectives: unlocking agency, driving economic

opportunity, and making systems more inclusive. Our vision is to see young people inspired and equipped to realize the future they want. The International Youth Foundation: Transforming Lives, Together.

To learn more about the International Youth Foundation, please join us at iyfnet.org.