Kenya is seeing similar “lighting” speed development in terms of entrepreneurship as witnessed in China a decade ago, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Network and the GEDI Institute.
Early data from the upcoming 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI) demonstrates entrepreneurship is beginning to flourish in Kenya, with the country scoring higher than all other Sub-Saharan African countries for tech transfer and research and development expenditures.
“The patterns of ‘lightning’ speed development that we witnessed in China are starting to appear in the skies over Kenya.” said Zoltan Acs, founder and president of the GEDI Institute.
“The development of institutions that support entrepreneurship across the Sub-Saharan African region follows a similar pattern to that of China ten years ago.”
The Global Entrepreneurship Index looks at the entrepreneurial ecosystem of countries by combining individual data such as opportunity recognition and risk perception with institutional components such as depth of capital markets, globalisation and spending on research and development.
It aims to provide policymakers with a tool for understanding the entrepreneurial strengths and weaknesses of their countries, enabling them to implement policies that foster productive entrepreneurship.
The data did flag two areas Kenyan policymakers still need to work on, namely tertiary education, where it came in 23rd among Sub-Saharan African countries, and corruption, where it came in 26th.
The full report, with data from 132 nations, will be released in November during Global Entrepreneurship Week.
“Policymakers around the world are searching for ways to strengthen their startup ecosystems to help new firms start and scale,” said Jonathan Ortmans, president of the Global Entrepreneurship Network. “This index looks beyond the rankings and helps them develop data-driven policies and programs to support entrepreneurs and generate economic growth.”
