Driving Sub-Saharan Africa’s Development Agenda through Social Innovation: The Potential of the Surging Youth Demography

In sub-Saharan Africa, it is widely recognized that innovation will play a crucial role in positioning the region's next investment hub in the global economic landscape. African governments, scientists, policy makers, private sector entrepreneurs, and civil society organisations have begun to tout innovation as a key ingredient for the engine of growth in fostering economic productivity, achieving social welfare, and promoting sustainable development. Sustained by a decade of high-level economic growth (averaging slightly more than 5% of annual GDP growth), the Economist indicates that sub-Saharan Africa is regarded as the second-fastest-growing continent globally after Asia, with six of the world's ten fastest-growing economies over the past decade in the region, which is supported by several reports released by McKinsey Global Institute and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) (McKinsey Global Institute, 2010; BCG, 2010). Underlying this acceleration in growth are the fundamental improvements in macroeconomic policies, the business environment, and growing political stability in many African countries.

The story of sub-Saharan Africa's impressive economic growth is often told alongside the alarming issue of the youth unemployment crisis which is occurring at a rate of 6%. The underlying reason is that traditional knowledge system of innovation has failed to adequately address the challenge of youth unemployment which has contributed to ill-fated phenomena such as social uprising, xenophobic actions, and increased social conflicts in many parts of Africa. The influx of young people into cities in African countries is enormous and this has exacerbated the unemployment crisis. Cities such as Accra, Abidjan, Lagos, Dar es Salaam, Cairo, Nairobi and Johannesburg are flooded with young people with inadequate skills in search of decent jobs which are non-existent. The endemic youth unemployment does not only create widespread unhappiness and social discontent among the youth, but also undermines the stability and socioeconomic development prospects of affected countries, leaving the youth an immense waste of human resources who are unable to contribute meaningfully to economic and social progress.

Without urgent action to modernize their economies through innovation and to create a favorable atmosphere for young people to flourish, sub-Saharan African countries risk wasting the tremendous potential offered by their youth. Urgently required is a transition from the old system of innovation towards a culture of embracing new models of innovation that drives social change towards peacebuilding, consensus-building, and social learning, providing social capital needed for economic and social growth. Social innovation is gradually becoming the norm among African youth and women for driving the agenda of social change and economic development at the grassroots level.

What is Social Innovation?

As an emerging concept, social innovation has gained prominence, culminating in the establishment of renowned institutions that are solely dedicated to the research, development, and promotion of the concept. Institutions such as the Center for Social innovation (CSI) at Stanford Business School of Graduate, Young Foundation, Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI), Social Innovation Exchange (SIX), and many other have defined social innovation with slight variations based on common underlying principles. These underlying principles define social innovation as novel ideas or solutions (products, services, and models), that address social needs and in the process create new social relationships or values and social learning.

In practice, social innovation helps address some of the most pressing challenges across the globe. In sub-Saharan Africa, the KiberaNet and DadaabNet wireless information and communication networks bring education, empowerment, and opportunities to more than 2 million dwellers in informal settlements in Kenya to manage their lives and nurture sustainable development. Social enterprises such as the Youth for Technology Foundation (YTF), Growth Mosaic and Ungana-Afrika are helping to catalyze the incubation of scalable enterprises that leverage pioneering technologies for the benefit of emerging markets and under-served communities. Many other social innovations including fair trade, distance learning, mobile money transfer, restorative justice, and zero-carbon housing provide solutions and concurrently profoundly change beliefs, basic practices, and social power structures. Social innovation brings an extra capital dimension to sustain the African social fabric, perceiving the social capital as an engine for growth and fundamental source of value.

Turning crisis into opportunity: the African Youth Demographic Dividend

Constituting a major share of sub-Saharan Africa's population (20.4% or close to 198 million people aged 15-24 years old and over 30%, aged 15-35 years old based on the definition used by the African Union), the current African youth are, on average, better connected to the rest of the world than any of the earlier generations of youth in the region. Africa's population pyramid depicts a massive and continuing youthfulness which provides a vibrant human resource base to accelerate growth, reduce poverty, and build a sustainable and peaceful future on the African continent. Owing to their drive and commitment, the youth are particularly well placed to work towards developing innovative ideas that would spur socioeconomic growth. The youth in Africa are the key to an African renaissance and will remain players and advocates of social transformation and development in many spheres. Banking on the great potential, dynamism, resourcefulness, resiliency, and aspirations of the youth, a unique opportunity awaits the African continent to maximize benefits from this critical social capital.

Boosting the Youth Innovation Potential

Within the framework of potential efforts and strategies to boost social inclusion, employment, and job creation for young people, social innovation is emerging as an important means and a useful alternative livelihood source for young people. Social innovations spearheaded by the youth in sub-Saharan Africa would be potent drivers of economic growth and social change through the businesses they establish, the wealth they generate, the jobs they create, and the power of their own personal examples.

Given Africa's continued population growth with a youthful repertoire and the necessary downsizing of the public sector in many African countries, a vigorous private sector driven by products of social innovation may be an important source of livelihood, career development, and prosperity for young people in African countries. Ideally, innovation initiatives for young people should span a comprehensive set of measures that facilitate young people to start and run their own business. Maximizing the impact of social innovation for sustained socioeconomic growth requires generating knowledge through research and enabling national policies and frameworks that are based on a sound understanding of the issues confronting the youth.

Concluding Remarks and Recommendations

Two amazing opportunities - the bustling African youth with full potential and social innovation - breathe new waves of optimism for a new kind of innovation geared towards the sustainable growth agenda in Africa. Propelling this sustainable agenda would require 5 key enabling factors for nurturing social innovation amongst the youth which include:

- The development of both private and public policy frameworks that encourage innovation is necessary to achieve a long-term impact.

- Social Innovation Accelerators to nourish ideas, rapidly test out new ideas in practice, allow fast learning across a community of social innovators, and establish clear pathways for scalable innovations.

- Social Innovation Investment through a mix of financial sources including grants, tax credits, subsidies, and private investment sources from technology-oriented venture capital to banks. Public-private partnerships can play an important role in supporting social innovations.

- The need for extensive, rigorous, imaginative, and historically aware research and capacity building social innovation is essential to enhance understanding. Rejuvenating the social base through heavy investment in capacity building, creating conducive platforms for interaction, and collaboration are prerequisites for social innovators to prosper.

This post was written by Ernest Acheampong, Southern Voices African Research Scholar at the Wilson Center and Research Officer at the African Technology Policy Studies Network.

Photo courtesy of Keith Porter via his blog on Blogspot entitled "Emerging Markets Musings."