Standing in a dusty airfield in Kigoma, Tanzania watching her parents board a plane, Susan Mashibe made a decision: when she grew up, she would become a pilot.
For many people, dreams like this remain unfulfilled, but not for Susan. Fast forward to 2015. Since that moment on the airfield, Susan has been working hard to become the first female FAA-certified commercial pilot and aircraft maintenance engineer in Tanzania. She has also founded VIA Aviation, a private jets logistic support business headquartered in the Dar es Salaam airfield she visited as a child.
Despite the company’s rapid growth and its plans for further expansion across Africa, Susan finds time to serve as Tanzania’s country chair for the international human rights organisation Global Dignity and is the regional leader of the National Business Aviation Association.
Perhaps this is the kind of story that entrepreneur and philanthropist Tony Elumelu had in mind when he said, “Young entrepreneurs and those they inspire are the lifeblood of Africa’s rise.”
Elumelu is right. Nations that encourage entrepreneurs, allow them the freedom to innovate, take risks and enable access to capital are ultimately more successful than those that do not. This is especially true in Africa – it is no accident that the top 10 countries in the 2014 Africa Prosperity Report (pdf) are also top performers on measures of entrepreneurship and opportunity.
In Botswana, which placed first overall in the report, 75% of people report that the country is a good place to start a business and average start-up costs are only 1% of per capita Gross National Income (GNI), which is significantly lower than most developed Western economies. In contrast, the Central African Republic (CAR) ranks last in the report and last in the entrepreneurship and opportunity category. In CAR, only 66% of people think the country is a good place to start a business and start-up costs are scandalously high at 226% of per capita GNI.
Entrepreneurship can be an empowering experience that has impacts beyond economic development. At the individual level, starting an enterprise means applying your skills, initiative and creativity to create a project that is uniquely yours. At the social level, working on a business venture with a team is a powerful experience that brings people together in relationships of mutual trust. At the national level, entrepreneurship in Africa can be a way out of aid dependency and towards self-sufficiency.
Data from Ethiopia illuminate this point: in recent years, aid has made up between 50 and 60% of the country’s national budget. If a greater proportion of government revenue came from Ethiopian entrepreneurs, it would be a major step towards true autonomy. This would create a virtuous cycle in which entrepreneurs produce products and services that people want, consumers buy those products and services, and the growing businesses create jobs, which in turn create wealth and increase incomes, enabling greater investment.
While Susan Mashibe’s story of entrepreneurship is impressive, what makes especially important is that it is a story of female entrepreneurship.
Since gender inequality is a barrier to economic growth and social development, women entrepreneurs have a critical role to play in Africa’s journey to prosperity. When women have professional opportunities, access to finance and support to develop their businesses, they flourish as entrepreneurs. This has been confirmed by the 2014 World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report, which demonstrates the relationship between competitiveness, per capita GDP and human development. African economic and social progress simply cannot be sustained if women are left out of business.
Across Africa, men and women own roughly the same number of businesses. However, men tend to dominate the upper echelons of enterprise while women are often relegated to microenterprises. Professors Anita Spring and Lettice Rutashobya highlight this trend in the 2014 Africa Prosperity Report.
Removing the barriers that hinder women from thriving as entrepreneurs would go a long way to facilitate growth in Africa by unlocking a huge amount of human capital. To a far greater extent than men, women business owners invest in their communities. Arancha González of the International Trade Centre has stated that “women entrepreneurs invest 90% of their revenues into the community.” González goes on to say that women entrepreneurs are “not only an amazing engine for growth, but they are an amazing engine for equitably distributing growth.”
The economic benefits of a thriving entrepreneurial culture are clear. In addition, it is increasingly evident that there are broader benefits to nations’ social and cultural dynamics. Facilitating women’s entrepreneurship magnifies these benefits. Unfortunately, across Africa, Susan Mashibe’s story is still the exception rather than the rule, but it offers a model of what can happen when women have access to the tools for successful entrepreneurship.
Anthony Demetriou is a researcher at the Legatum Institute; Nathan Gamester is the programme director for the annual Legatum Prosperity Index™
Launched at the United Nations, the Business Call to Action (BCtA) is a global alliance hosted by the United Nations Development Programme. BCtA supported Legatum Institute’s 2015 Africa Prosperity Summit: Promoting Wealth and Wellbeing, held on 20-21 May in Tanzania, which featured the 2014 Africa Prosperity Report.
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