Promoting Entrepreneurship in Africa: Alternative Strategies and the Scope for Affirmative Action1

Abstract

Developing countries have, in the last few decades, pursued a number of strategies to promote indigenous entrepreneurship. According to the author, Africa has followed basically two models - parallelism and partnership - in this respect. Reviewing the progress of efforts so far, the paper argues that experience transfer and skill acquisition should be the essence of a meaningful programme of entrepreneurship development. The author’s analysis and prescriptions are based on his experience in South Africa and relate primarily to Africa, but they might provide useful clues to strategies relevant for other developing countries as well.