Mogadishu (SONNA) – COVID-19, while deeply affecting the health, wellbeing, and livelihoods of billions of people around the world, it has also highlighted the fragility of our current systems and the urgent need for innovative solutions. While innovation has always been the backbone of human existence, it is the process of turning ideas into profitable ventures and the spirit of entrepreneurship that has nourished it. Hand in hand, innovation and entrepreneurship create an ecosystem that turns ideas into realities that enrich our lives.
Innovation and entrepreneurship have never gained more prominence and importance to human history than today. Societies have grown to depend on innovation to find solutions to the new challenges arising everyday. At the same time, experience has shown that boosting the innovative and entrepreneurial capacity of a given society makes it more resilient to sudden shocks.
After the corona virus pandemic caused a steep slump in growth in the beginning of the year, China’s economy has avoided slipping into recession after demonstrating a growth of 3.2% in the second quarter of 2020. This is in huge part owed to the quick adaptability of China’s entrepreneurs, who, at sighting the opportunities within current challenges, redirected their efforts to manufacturing protection and protective equipment.
While entrepreneurship is often credited with propelling economic changes in the country, China’s entrepreneurial spirit runs deeper than just in business. “Mass entrepreneurship and innovation” has been the leading agenda of China’s national economic strategy for decades. At the same time, China’s support for innovation and entrepreneurship goes beyond its borders, as both continue to be the focus of international cooperation frameworks such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Forum on China
Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). Increased cooperation between China and African countries in the past two decades has also propelled the spirits of innovation and entrepreneurship on the African continent. In China, African entrepreneurs have found affordable solutions to many of Africa’s challenges.
Similarly, emerging technologies in China have inspired life-changing innovations on the continent such as mobile payments and online marketplaces. Here in Somalia, given the limited employment opportunities in the past three decades, innovation and entrepreneurship have been a means of survival for our youth.
What COVID-19 has done, is that it brought the potential of our youth to the forefront and given them a rare opportunity to demonstrate their tenacity and resilience in overcoming the challenges that surround them. Our youth have come a long way in reshaping the face of the continent. What they need now is our committed concrete support through the creation of the regulatory and infrastructural environment that is conducive to enhancing their capacity, and provide them with the skills they need to succeed.
Cultivating the skills of innovation and entrepreneurship in youth has huge multiplier effects in communities. This is particularly significant in Somalia where more than 70% of the population is under 30, representing one of the largest youth demographics in the world.
Measures to practically leverage this huge demographic dividend were the focus of discussion by participants in the Virtual Forum on China-Africa & China-South Africa Youth Innovation and Entrepreneurship, organized by Zhejiang Normal University on the 18th of August, 2020, as part of the 6th Zhejiang College Students’ “Internet Plus” innovation and entrepreneurship competition.
While this platform was designed to allow China and Africa’s youth to share innovative ideas, knowledge and skills, it has become an important venue for Africa and China’s youth to express their aspirations and demands. During this event, college students from China, Somalia and more than a dozen African countries, published a joint declaration titled “The New Era Initiative for Boosting Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Chinese and African College Students— the Zhejiang Initiative”.
In this declaration, youth representatives called upon Chiense and African governments to provide stronger support for innovation and entrepreneurship in youth. They also called upon Chinese and African enterprises to step up efforts to integrate industry and education, establish international platforms for practical training and joint laboratories.
But most importantly, they called upon Chinese and African colleges and universities to enhance the training mechanism for innovative and entrepreneurial talents, establish an education and teaching system conducive to the improvement of their innovation and entrepreneurship capacity, create more innovation and entrepreneurship competitions and projects, and encourage, guide and support Chinese and African students to carry out international cooperation and exchanges in innovation and entrepreneurship.
The demands of these youth translate from the challenges they face everyday. Imagine what the world would look like today if we could unleash the potential of the hundreds of millions of youth aspiring to bring about disruptive change. Let’s pave the way for today’s youth to becoming the propelling force that drives us towards a brighter future. Author: Dr. Hodan Osman Abdi, Associate Research Fellow, Institute of African Studies at Zhejiang Normal University. @drhodanosman
