Entrepreneurship, Technology Development and Productivity Across Firms in Africa in the 1990s: Lessons for the Youth Post COVID-19 Era

Abstract

This paper seeks to assess the contribution of technological change over the 1990s to the enterprise development in Sub-Saharan Africa and how that may inform the youth-start-ups today. Applying the Multivariate Multilevel Statistical modeling tools, the study investigated variability in productivity growth across enterprises within and between countries in Africa due to technological change, and those due to firm and country- specific effects. The results indicate that, variability in productivity growth due to technological change over the period was not significant suggesting that, the changes in productivity growth across and within enterprises in Africa were not influenced greatly by technology. The results however show that variability in productivity growth across enterprises in Africa, specifically Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Cameroon has been largely due to physical, human capital and labour inputs. These results are in line with findings by Lall in 2003 that suggest that technological development has not been prioritized in Africa.  The lesson for the youth here is that, the bulk of the output growth across enterprises in Africa in the 1990s and even in 2000s was largely due to production inputs. Has that changed today and can that change in the post COVID-19 era? The answers require further studies.