Leaders urged to focus on social entrepreneurship to accelerate COVID-19 recovery in Africa

As the fourth edition of the Annual African Conference on Social Entrepreneurship (AACOSE) kicks off today, stakeholders have called for more focus on social entrepreneurship and cross-sector collaboration towards an accelerated recovery from COVID-19s impact on the economy and for economic growth in Africa.

Convened by Tangaza University College and Ashoka East Africa, the conference has drawn participation from academia, leading social entrepreneurs, an array of actors in academia and social impact ecosystems, government and private sector representatives, from Kenya, across Africa, US, Europe and other continents.

Social entrepreneurs or innovators are individuals who come up with innovations that seek to provide solutions to challenges that affect people, whether social, cultural or environmental.

Millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa continue to lack access to basic or quality services and goods in the sectors such as education, agriculture, healthcare and technology which social entrepreneurs address with innovative, scalable solutions.
These innovators are also playing a growing role in solving challenges around equity and other social justice in Africa.

“The ongoing pandemic has clearly shown that there is a need for sustainable economic solutions in Africa and the world, and social innovation has demonstrated the impact it has in providing these solutions,” said Vincent Odhiambo, Regional Director at Ashoka East Africa.

Other than supportive policy regulations and legal frameworks, financing solutions and opening markets for good and services offered by social entrepreneurs to nurture sustainable social innovative environments, stakeholders have also called on institutions of higher learning to adopt the social entrepreneurship education and foster social innovation within their ecosystem.

“It is time for academic institutions to start partnering with governments and multi sector players to ensure that they develop the human capital that every generation will need to address emerging challenges,” said Jonas Yawovi Dzinekou, Director of the Institute for Social Transformation (IST) at Tangaza University College.

A report by the British Council on the state of social enterprises in Kenya revealed that 68 percent of social enterprises have a mission to create employment opportunities while 65 percent of surveyed enterprises are led by youth people aged 25 to 44 years, showing the potential that they have to alleviate unemployment in Kenya.

Furthermore, as COVID-19 exposes under investment in healthcare systems, social entrepreneurship have played a role to provide inclusive health care, micro- insurance, access to medicine and technological based solutions for health in various parts of Africa.