Entrepreneurship

Nurturing leaders, building independence

Helping young people secure waged employment is just one part of the story of economic inclusion. With a rapidly increasing youth population, the World Bank estimates that 600 million more jobs will need to be created by 2030, just to keep employment rates constant.⁸

Youth entrepreneurship is recognised as vital in creating these jobs.⁹ Yet young people often lack the skills, resources, and confidence needed to start, maintain, and grow a business.

Futuremakers entrepreneurship projects aim to set participants on a path to long-term, self-driven economic inclusion. Our partners support young people to develop business skills relevant to starting or growing a business, building financial knowledge, and gaining access to finance and business networks.

As with the other pathways, intensive activities typically involve training sessions run for a specific period. Participants gain a financial education and receive ongoing mentoring and coaching support. In some cases, they can also compete for and/or receive seed funding.

Key outputs and outcomes

Of the 235,137 young people reached, 50,811 participated in intensive activities between January 2019 and April 2023. Below are the key outputs and outcomes:

37,987 young people improved business-related knowledge and skills.
8,092 jobs were created through the supported businesses.
11,568 young people set up new micro businesses.
6,705 micro businesses were still operational six months after project completion.
902 participants reported increased access to external finance.

Read more about our entrepreneurship projects.

There is room for improvement. For example, while most participants reported improved business-related knowledge and skills, a relatively small proportion have demonstrated outcome results. This can largely be explained by the fact that projects previously were not designed to direct outputs into outcomes results. As we suggest in the section on lessons learned, optimising project time frames for greater emphasis on outcomes is our long-term response.

An entrepreneurship success story

Inspiring new business growth in Vietnam

Truong’s two previous businesses closed during the height of COVID-19. Yet the pandemic inspired a new product idea: teas that combined traditional and modern Vietnamese health principles. However, Truong lacked the experience or training to launch her idea. This changed after she enrolled in a Futuremakers project implemented by Startup Vietnam Foundation in partnership with Youth Business International, where she learned how to create a development plan and market her product.

Her teas are now generating revenue and her business is growing – along with her confidence.

Learn more about Truong’s story here.

Every factor of my business was in my mind… but I didn’t know how to write it down and think about it systematically.

Truong
Vietnam

Project spotlight: Women in Tech

Women remain widely underrepresented among tech-led businesses across the world.¹⁰ Women in Tech is our response: a Futuremakers entrepreneurship project that provides business training, mentoring, and seed funding to female entrepreneurs who use technology to deliver products and services.

Via Women in Tech, we aim to create more opportunities for women to develop entrepreneurial and leadership expertise. Like Goal, Women in Tech has run for many years (since 2014), and it transitioned to become part of Futuremakers in 2019. As of mid-2023, Women in Tech and Women in Entrepreneurship (new programme in Asia) have been implemented in 13 markets: Bahrain, Ghana, Kenya, South Korea, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Zambia.

The projects have evolved over the years to meet the changing needs of female entrepreneurs. The latest development was the launch of a new investment facility for female-led micro businesses from Women in Tech in 2022. This facility will test the most appropriate investment instruments for early-stage female entrepreneurs by providing flexible and impact-driven capital.

Watch the videos to find out more.

An entrepreneurship success story

Accelerating business dreams in Pakistan

Sadaf launched her own business after spotting a unique opportunity in skincare. After the birth of her second child, she realised that women were often ignoring their skincare needs after childbirth, and that their babies also often had skincare problems. From this came her idea of skincare products that target women and children. But to scale – especially against the backdrop of COVID-19 – she needed support. Through her participation in Women in Tech, Sadaf’s confidence and business skills notably improved.

She was also awarded a grant that she used to automate production processes, leading to a tenfold increase in business turnover.

Learn more about Sadaf’s story here.

Our gender is quick to point out what we don’t have rather than focus on what we bring.

Sadaf
Pakistan