Microsoft has reinforced its relationship with the African Development Bank (AfDB) to tackle the investment and financial access limitations faced by African entrepreneurs.
The partnership will see to the establishment and growth of national-level institutions, leveraging public-private collaboration model to ensure entrepreneurs get the required technical and financial support while building their capacity.
Microsoft believes that youth entrepreneurship will bolster solutions to unemployment if only the lack of investment, affordable access to finance, and quality business development services are resolved.
With the AfDB initiative; Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks (YEIB), set up to anchor and integrate efforts to develop entrepreneurship ecosystems in Africa, and through its African Transformation Office (ATO), Microsoft will develop youth entrepreneurship ecosystems, create jobs, and scale impact in Africa through digital inclusion.
Wael Elkabbany, General Manager of Microsoft Africa Regional Cluster, said: “We believe much can be done to help foster youth entrepreneurship by collaborating with the African Development Bank, driving greater economic inclusion for this key segment of the population, and ultimately building a more prosperous society.”
He further noted that there has already been considerable success in the partnership on initiatives such as Coding for Employment, which aims to equip millions of African youth with employable skills, ultimately creating broadscale employment.
The AfDB Vice President for Private Sector, Infrastructure, and Industrialization Solomon Quaynor highlighted that the strengthening of the partnership with Microsoft on the Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Banks (YEIB) is an important development in the journey toward harnessing Africa’s demographic dividend and facilitating the creation of millions of jobs for young Africans by 2025. “The initiative places much-needed focus on youth entrepreneurship, which is key to achieving our ambitious employment targets.”
The Youth Entrepreneurship Investment Bank will establish a funding scheme, credit guarantee scheme, and technical assistance programs to strengthen providers of services to entrepreneurs. In terms of policy support, it will advocate governments for the business-enabling environment reforms needed to catalyse youth entrepreneurship.
Microsoft establishes that it will also leverage its partner ecosystem, which covers 54 countries across the continent, to act on crucial technology solutions across four key areas. These include skilling, connectivity, small-to-medium enterprise (SME) digitization, and hardware:
Skilling
To connect youth to economic opportunity and employability skills, the partnership will provide them with career pathways and learning content. This includes the use of existing e-learning platforms such as Coding for Employment. The initiative also aims to build the capacity of Enterprise Services Organizations, benefitting youth through training trainers.
Connectivity
By leveraging successful connectivity solutions such as Microsoft Airband, the partnership will develop effective infrastructure models to help bridge the digital divide. At the same time, it will support other innovative solutions on the market either through direct or indirect investment.
Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) digitization
The partnership also aims to improve SME digital literacy and business skills by creating access to curated learning content, certifications, business solutions, business skills, and specialized digital skills. This will be driven in partnership with LinkedIn and through skilling programs such as MS Learn and the Cloud Academy. Access to finance for digitally enabled SMEs will also be facilitated through Microsoft partnerships.
Hardware
SME access to bundled hardware solutions will be created by Microsoft and its partners. SMEs will also be able to purchase Microsoft technology at discounted prices.
The partnership also forms an important part of Microsoft ATO’s mission to empower 10 million SMEs through access to skilling initiatives and investments, and to generate the capacity needed to scale and provide digital skills to 30 million Africans.
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