Dominated by the informal sector, African entrepreneurship is, for most of the continent’s business leaders, first and foremost a question of subsistence. With L-Impact, the Forrest International Group supports around fifty Congolese entrepreneurs, with the most promising projects benefiting from an incubation and coaching period of several months.
Could Africa be the new promised land for entrepreneurs? On a continent where demography and digitalization are galloping together, there is no shortage of entrepreneurial vocations. According to a 2022 survey by the Ichikowitz Family Foundation (IFF), nearly eight in ten Africans aged 18 to 24 (78%) would consider starting their own business. An entrepreneurial spirit which even reaches, among young people, 92% of respondents in Malawi, 89% in Rwanda and even 89% in Uganda. And it is, unsurprisingly, that these aspiring entrepreneurs are focusing primarily on the new technology sector (43%).
Entrepreneurship is an essential reality of African economic life
Younger, the African battalions of entrepreneurship are also more feminized. In sub-Saharan Africa, one in four women of working age (25%) embarks on the adventure – a proportion four times higher than in Europe, where it peaks at 6%. Which makes the continent the region in the world where the rate of women entrepreneurs is the highest. Obviously, these figures vary from one African country to another, depending on local specificities. But one invariant remains: the famous “glass ceiling”. Less educated than men, African women also turn more towards informal activities, requiring little capital and generating less income, therefore fewer prospects for growth.
This prevalence of subsistence – or even survival – entrepreneurship affects both women and men in Africa. According to the World Bank, informal businesses still represent nearly three quarters (72%) of businesses in developing countries where, as in Africa, a certain number of structural obstacles remain: difficulties in accessing financing, lack of infrastructure, regulatory complexity, educational gaps, political and political instability, endemic corruption, etc. Which does not prevent young Africans from declaring themselves, according to the “African Youth Survey”, to be mostly optimistic and confident in the future. Nor do they believe, at 66%, that their country encourages a culture of innovation.
In the DRC, Groupe Forrest International supports Congolese entrepreneurs
If they have faith in their own abilities, African entrepreneurs are therefore faced with a series of obstacles that are difficult to overcome for those who do not rely on a strong network or sufficient capital. So many barriers that the patronage of certain large groups can help to overcome. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Forrest International Group (GFI) and the King Baudouin Foundation joined forces in 2023 to launch a new program to support local entrepreneurs. Called L-Impact and based in Lubumbashi, the country’s second city, the initiative aimed to support around fifty entrepreneurs in pre-incubation, then around twenty projects in the incubation phase.
Following the success of the first edition in 2023, the initiative was renewed in 2024. Completely free, the latter extended over six months and should allow selected entrepreneurs, with diverse profiles, to develop their mastery of the tools necessary to the entrepreneur, to follow the development of their ecosystem or to approach their future partners (financiers, customers, etc.). Marked, for many, by an eco-friendly fiber, the projects selected are deployed in the fields of waste management, education, energy, culture, sustainable construction or the circular economy. By focusing on the youth of Lubumbashi, GFI hopes to demonstrate that entrepreneurship can be a Source of social emancipation and inspiration for young Congolese.
Other initiatives are emerging in favor of Congolese entrepreneurs. Last August, more than five hundred of them gathered in Buvaku, in the province of South Kivu, to discuss their ideas, their challenges and their difficulties. And in November, DRC President Félix Tshisekedi inaugurated a new House of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Objective: to raise awareness among young Congolese about business culture, and to support project leaders, particularly on the legal side and knowledge of the various structures and systems likely to help them during their entrepreneurial adventure.
African entrepreneurship shines internationally
Finally, African entrepreneurs can count on the support of international institutions and mechanisms. The French Development Agency (AFD) and Bpifrance have just launched the second phase of their Choose Africa initiative: the program, which runs until 2027 and which has already mobilized 3.5 billion euros, is now benefiting and already to more than 40,000 companies and hundreds of thousands of African microentrepreneurs. The Euro-Africa Biennale, which was held in Montpellier last October, opened a Campus for young African entrepreneurs in order to make pan-African innovation visible. So many signs which demonstrate that African entrepreneurial wealth radiates, more and more, well beyond the borders of the continent.
