Fostering Entrepreneurship Development among Youth for Job Creation through Industrial Development: The Case of Zanzibar Technology and Business Incubator

Abstract

Entrepreneurship development is recognized worldwide as one of the vehicle for job creation among youth and hence enhancing sustainable economic development. In this regards, many countries have taken various initiatives to promote Entrepreneurship through Technology and Business Incubators (TBIs). The experience shows that, most of prominent industries worldwide have originated from clusters or incubators. Like many developing countries, Zanzibar has high youth unemployment rate of 14.3%. In order to reduce the unemployment rate and to meet the development goals, the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar through Ministry of Labour, Empowerment, Elders, Youth, Women and children in collaboration with COSTECH, Dar es Salaam established the first ZTBI incubator to spearhead entrepreneurship development in Zanzibar, foster entrepreneurial culture and nurture start up business among youth. This paper analyzed the potential of ZTBI in supporting entrepreneurship development and job creation in Zanzibar. It has highlighted the status of youth employment; the role of agribusiness and agro processing industry and analyzed linkages between ZTBI incubates with other sectors. The paper also presents the number of companies that has been established since its inception in 2015. The method used in this study was survey, observation and discussion. Finally, the paper revealed that, there are numbers of activities carried out including training of 779 youth on entrepreneurship skills, conducting outreach programme to support youth outside of the incubation centre to inculcate entrepreneurial mind-set. Moreover, it stimulated entrepreneurial mind-set among youth through business plan competitions and incubating 11 “companies” with 2-5 individuals in business. It further facilitated start up business and incubating start up business to increase their success rate and incubated companies create jobs, revitalized communities. It also found that, incubates activities have close linkages with many sectors, such as tourism. Lastly, this paper also contributes to enhance the knowledge transfer and strategic implementation of the ZTBIs incubator models and provides useful information to policy  makers who are interested in starting new TBIs in other developing countries.