Namibia has beaten Nigeria and other African nations to come top of an index used for ranking business environments where entrepreneurship thrives the most, a new report released November 28 has shown.
The inaugural Ashish J Thakkar Global Entrepreneurship Index measures entrepreneurial environments around the world and assesses each of its 85 countries against a set of criteria that spans policy, infrastructure, education, entrepreneurial environment and finance.
It shows that, globally, Singapore has topped the in-depth study of the world’s nations as offering the best environment for entrepreneurs.
The 2016 index is the brainchild of serial entrepreneur, Ashish J Thakkar, who started his first business at the age of 15, and has been developed with support from independent research consultancy, Opinium, to create a wide-ranging and thorough analysis of the state of entrepreneurship globally.
Of the African nations ranked on the index, Namibia scored the highest points and came 42nd overall, ahead of other prominent African markets, such as Nigeria, which ranked 70th position, as well as Kenya and South Africa, which ranked 60th and 48th positions respectively.
On the basis of these parameters, used for stock taking in the index, which are policy, infrastructure, education, entrepreneurship and finance, Nigeria scored 29 in policy, 23 in infrastructure, 20 in education, 35 in entrepreneurship and 47 in finance.
While South Africa got 35 in policy, 42 in infrastructure, 51 in education, 38 in entrepreneurship and 68 in finance, for Kenya, the scores are 36 in policy, 29 in infrastructure, 38 in education, 43 in entrepreneurship and 53 in finance.
The index also features a special “Focus on Africa section,” with a deeper look at women in the workplace and youth unemployment.
In that section, Namibia ranks 42nd overall, Rwanda ranks 43rd, while Botswana and South Africa rank 44th and 46th respectively, all of which perform well on the policy pillar but not on infrastructure and education, and need to improve.
Of the top three African countries on the index, Namibia and Botswana are stronger on the education pillar because of comparatively higher levels of literacy and quality in education, as both countries have made education central to their national development agenda.
Rwanda scored highly on the policy and finance pillars, driven by government initiatives to increase the ease of doing business, as credit is easily available and business transparency is high.
Zambia scored particularly well on the finance pillar (72) primarily because of the availability of credit and a low total tax rate.
Zambia, South Africa and Rwanda, the top three countries in Africa on the finance pillar, stand head and shoulders above their peers, with scores of 72, 66 and 65 respectively.
This places Zambia in the top 10 of all countries globally on the finance pillar, just behind the USA (78).
Significant challenges exist in terms of Africa’s political stability, underdeveloped infrastructure, poor education and under-diversified economies.
Comparatively lower scores for infrastructure are primarily driven by a lack of electrical access and the technology that comes with reliable access to energy, such as telecommunications and internet access.
Lower scores for education are due to the overall quality of education and lower literacy rates, but boosting opportunities for a quality education is imperative for increasing the region’s quality of entrepreneurs and start-ups and providing a suitable workforce.
While much of Western Europe does well overall in the index, Greece and Spain rank relatively low, 34th and 50th respectively.
Both nations are continuing to reel from the after-effects of the financial crisis, which have been exacerbated by poor levels of entrepreneurial opportunities.
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