Youth Business International launches The YBI Africa Collaborative with a Dedicated Group of Members to Empower Youth Entrepreneurship Across the Continent

Africa is home to the youngest and fastest-growing population in the world, brimming with dynamism and innovative potential. Entrepreneurship is vibrant, with more than three-quarters of the youth population aspiring to start their own businesses within five years. The entrepreneurial spirit of this generation represents an opportunity for inclusive economic growth, job creation, and sustainable development across the continent.

Despite this ambition, young entrepreneurs across Africa face formidable challenges. These range from limited access to appropriate finance and connected markets to the lack of coordinated and quality business development services, technical support, and enabling government policies. Systemic issues within many African countries further compound these difficulties, meaning too many promising youth-led ventures falter, while the potential impact of young entrepreneurs remains unfulfilled.

There is a clear and urgent need for contextually rooted local solutions that address these systemic barriers. A new model of entrepreneur-led sustainable development is required – one that genuinely considers the lived experiences of young people across the diverse African landscape. 

The YBI Africa Collaborative 

In response to this critical need, Youth Business International (YBI) and a dedicated group of its member Entrepreneurship Support Organisations (ESOs) from across Africa have formed The YBI Africa Collaborative. The Collaborative leverages YBI’s proven track record of impact, with its members in the region collectively supporting over 47,000 entrepreneurs and having facilitated the creation of almost 200,000 jobs in Africa last year alone.

The YBI Africa Collaborative consists of the following organisations:

• CAP YEI, Kenya
• Enterprise Uganda
• FATE Foundation, Nigeria
• Fetola, South Africa
• ideiaLab, Mozambique
• Somo, Kenya
• Youth Business International

Our mission and vision

The YBI Africa Collaborative’s 10-year vision is ambitious yet achievable: To make Africa the best continent for youth entrepreneurship.

This means the strengthening of local institutions and partnerships, the engagement of a diverse array of young entrepreneurs and a focus on making markets work effectively within local communities. This initiative is founded on the principle of advocating for and implementing a new model of pan-Africa support that is driven by local expertise and tailored to the continent’s unique contexts. 

Based on this vision, The YBI Africa Collaborative’s mission is: To leverage pan-African experience and collaborate to ensure effective youth entrepreneurship support.

The YBI Africa Collaborative will serve as a dynamic platform for ambitious and aligned African ESOs to move beyond day-to-day support for individual entrepreneurs. The Collaborative aspires to facilitate strategic thinking and collaborative action on innovations, interventions, and advocacy efforts designed to achieve systemic impact, foster shared learning, and build more effective partnerships. 

“The Africa Collaborative will be a game-changer for youth entrepreneurship across the continent, creating a platform for systemic change driven by local expertise.”

Adenike Adeyemi, Executive Director at the FATE Foundation and YBI Board Trustee

Youth Business International’s goal is to drive economic growth and job creation through supporting and scaling youth-led businesses globally. By working with members across regions to address evolving challenges, we can support more young people into meaningful and decent work. This new collaboration is a fresh approach to supporting youth-led businesses through sustainable, longer-term action and a new model of harnessing the local expertise of our growing network to achieve greater impact at scale.

The YBI Africa Collaborative Offer 

The YBI Africa Collaborative will focus on impactful interventions that are scalable and systemic, provide demonstrable learnings, and achieve meaningful benefits for disadvantaged young entrepreneurs across the continent. We have three areas of focus:

1. Enhancing Access to Finance
2. Strengthening Business Development Services (BDS)
3. Fostering Enabling Entrepreneurship Ecosystems

A Call to Collaborative Pan-African Action 

To learn more about the focus areas for the YBI Africa Collaborative or how you can work with us to achieve our mission, see here.

The YBI Africa Collaborative is uniquely positioned to drive transformative change. YBI has 25 years of global leadership combined with local expertise, insights, and the commitment of expert ESOs. This unique approach allows us to coordinate, drive and deliver large-scale strategic and impactful work across multiple countries, without compromising locally rooted and effective solutions.