What the government can do to inspire a culture of Entrepreneurship for a better Sierra Leone

Due to its unique place and big hand, Government more than anyone else, has a unique opportunity to inspire an entrepreneurship culture and mind-set in the youth of Sierra Leone. Government has great capacity to mobilize external as well as internal resources and use its offices to channel these resources in the creation of an atmosphere favourable for young people to take up entrepreneurship. There are several ways this can be done.

First of all, the government has to realize that entrepreneurship more than anything else is a mind-set which can be inspired and consciously developed to create a flourishing nation. It is a mind-set that sees challenges and gaps as opportunities for growth and transformation and requires the capacity to use readily available human and physical resources to improve communities. This has two major implications. First, the government rather than seeing itself as the solver of problems must take a facilitating role where it’s primary focus is in improving the capacity of young people and local communities to champion local solutions to local problems. The second implication is my next point.

Next entrepreneurship must bridge school and life. Apart from shifting to a facilitating role, the government must ensure the mind-set of entrepreneurship be inculcated in the minds of young people while they are still in school. We have to shift our attention to making sure schools promote entrepreneurship. This can be done by supporting well-planned entrepreneurship programmes in schools and the awarding of personal initiatives led by students. This will help them to develop the ability to see a need and use their creativity, skills and available resources to solve problems. We cannot wait until young people leave school to help them develop an entrepreneurial mind-set, it’s already too late then. Rather than have our children learn out-dated content and theories, education systems must innovate fast enough to reflect the needs of countries.

Role models are also a very important aspect of promoting a culture of entrepreneurship in a country. Young people have to be exposed to numerous examples of other young people or people like them who have taken up the spirit of enterprise and stories of how they did it. The government must put resources to ensure that through visiting school, radio, television and other means young people see people like them starting businesses to solve local and global problems and exploring new opportunities. When we showcase the work and achievement of entrepreneurs, we avoid the possible cognitive dissonance that young people would otherwise experience about venturing into entrepreneurship.

A crucial role the government can play to promote an enterprising culture is to de-clutter and strengthen the key pillars of a good business climate: the legal, financial and technological infrastructure that makes entry into entrepreneurship and succeeding in business in Sierra Leone as easy a process as possible. A thriving business climate is built on a robust and fair judicial system; people must believe in the integrity of the courts and investments must be made to make sure legal proceedings are as swift yet effective as possible.

Since business needs finance, the government should create and or support financial services and interventions dedicated to seeding, incubating and supporting young businesses so that they may withstand and outlive their infant days into thriving businesses creating gains for entrepreneurs, communities and tax revenues for the government.

Finally, the government must invest in strengthening the technological infrastructure that will allow businesses to connect, scale their production and take advantage of technological innovation transforming economies across the world. This is an area we have made significant strides as a country, however much more has to be done to solidify this progress and ensure it produces meaningful gains for the Sierra Leonean economy. Since developing such infrastructure is capital intensive, the government stands in a unique place to mobilize support from other countries, international development agencies and other forms of support to renovate our technological infrastructure.

In the end, we have most of the ingredients that makes prosperous and thriving nation (an extremely young population, vast natural resources, an excellent geographical location, a diverse and rich culture and so much more). With the right policies and mind-set, a caring government may just be the missing piece that will take us to the future we want.