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Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
YOUTHS start-ups have a critical role to play in reviving African economies across the continent and young entrepreneurs need to turn existing challenges into opportunities to develop sustainable businesses.

ZimTrade chief executive officer, Mr Allan Majuru, said this on Tuesday during a virtual meeting ahead of the 2021 Intra-African Trade Fair.

Speaking on the importance of youth start-ups in reviving the economy of African economies, he said African youths should tap into the broad spectrum of advantage the continent has.

“We have a very big population as well as the Gross Domestic Product per capita as a continent. We have diversified economies as countries and national endowments. We are one of the richest compared to others,” said Mr Majuru.

He said there were some hard questions for African youths and those questions also present in themselves challenges.

“But as start-ups, we look at challenges, we need to turn them into opportunities and the big question is: are we adding value to our resources? If you look at it as a continent, we are basically a raw material supplier. We are exporting value and jobs at the end of the day,” he said, adding that the narrative needs to be changed with the youth start-ups looking at opportunities that come with the value addition process.

Mr Majuru said in terms of tourism, Africa offers various opportunities and labour as 75 percent of the continent’s total population is below 35 years.

“With all this, how do youths and start-ups come in, how can they tap into these opportunities to make sure that we can extract value and sustainable viable businesses?” he said.

Mr Majuru said it was imperative for the continent to ensure individual countries’ economic growth models are inclusive taking on board youth participation in addressing real challenges such as issues to do with food security in terms of agriculture development and innovations.

Turning to the topical issue of climate change, the ZimTrade boss challenged youths on the continent to make sure they contribute to the narrative by investing in green projects that mitigate the effects of climate change in Africa.

“I know there are a number of interventions that have been put forward such as going green. In Zimbabwe, we have got a company that has developed solutions of going green and also making sure that the environment is protected,” he said.

Mr Majuru said there has also been talk of the much-touted 4th Industrial Revolution expected to increase Africa’s competitiveness. This is where the continent needs to embrace artificial intelligence and digital action in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, he said.

“We know Covid-19 brought some challenges, if we flip them the other way, they become opportunities. But what we need to ask ourselves is: are we providing solutions that are sustainable as youth start-ups to solve the problems in order for our businesses to remain viable?” he said.

Mr Majuru said intra-Africa trade was lacking and thus it was imperative to ensure the youths have a role to play in increasing trade among African countries.

“Infra-structure development is quite key in promoting intra-African trade, right now it’s not possible because of the infrastructure gaps,” he said.

In terms of economic development, Mr Majuru said there are a number of issues the youths need to look at to scale-up production and create more jobs.

“Infra-structure development creates opportunities for people who want to get into construction and it also creates employment,” he said. — @okazunga.