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Unlocking Africa’s future: UNESCO strengthens entrepreneurship education in SADC
In a conference room in Maputo, educators, policymakers and entrepreneurs from Southern Africa gathered around a bold vision: What if every graduate left campus not just with a degree—but with the skills to launch innovation, solve challenges, and employ others?
This was the driving question at UNESCO’s workshop, “Unlocking Potential, Empowering Minds: Building Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Tertiary Education”, held from 31 March to 2 April 2025, which aimed to address Africa’s unemployment crisis, with 267 million young people currently not in employment, education, or training. The initiative aligns with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and UNESCO’s Campus Africa Flagship Programme on reinforcing higher education in Africa.
Integration of entrepreneurship into higher education ensures African youth are not just job seekers, but job creators.
Entrepreneurship and innovation reinforce the need to keep pace with labor market transformations, where professionals must be adaptable and proficient in multiple areas.
H.E. Mr Haakon Gram-Johannessen, Ambassador of Norway to Mozambique commended UNESCO’s leadership in advancing a more coordinated approach to entrepreneurship education.
This workshop represents a space for mapping, reflection and peer learning. The insights gained and partnerships formed will help move this agenda forward.
Tertiary education is a good launchpad for entrepreneurship.
Throughout the event, participants explored various facets of entrepreneurship, including effectuation, innovation and creativity. The sessions, led by Ms. Farshida Zafar, Director of the Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship (ECE), provided insights into entrepreneurial education strategies, including tools for testing and designing experiments. Participants developed roadmaps and action plans for enhancing their own educational practices and promoting entrepreneurship education. Ms. Altaye Tedla, Director of IP eLearning and Internal Training Program at World Intellectual Property Organization, shared insights on the link between intellectual property and entrepreneurship education.
It does not happen often that different stakeholders from education ecosystems come together to co-create their desired future for entrepreneurship education. This is the ideal environment to apply our experiential tools and techniques, empowering participants to be innovative change agents.
The participants, ranging from relevant ministries to universities to TVET institutions, expressed deep appreciation for the workshop, highlighting its role in revealing both regional and national strengths and weaknesses in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship through practical, action-oriented exercises. They emphasized that the insights gained would be instrumental in unlocking the long-underutilized potential of youth, empowering them not only to seek jobs but also to become job creators within their communities.
Following the mapping of the status of entrepreneurship education in the region, UNESCO ROSA will build on the challenges and opportunities identified during the discussions with a view to integrating entrepreneurship into higher education, strengthening collaboration, and fostering policy alignment to drive economic growth and youth empowerment.
We will embark on a collective mission to reimagine how tertiary education can become a catalyst for entrepreneurship and transformative changes.
