Advances in Management and Applied Economics

Echoes and Reverberations of Entrepreneurship in West Africa: Any Missing Links?

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  • Abstract

    The positive economic picture, trends and development news that have emerged from Africa over the past decades, contradicts the everyday livelihood reality of Africans. The deficiencies in entrepreneurship and management in Africa has been identified as the bane to poor resource management. Entrepreneurship was adopted to reduce this gap. Corrective actions, have been implemented to provide support for "creative initiatives" and management from all sides in the past 50 years without significant success. This has been done without an understanding of the nature of entrepreneurship in Africa. This paper aims to provide this understanding. It reviews the elusive concept of entrepreneurship as understood and practiced in the African continent, highlights the role of entrepreneurship in market operations and governance (this will guide policy and programmes direction), highlights areas of breakthroughs, challenges, echoes to provide a syntheses of thoughts in accelerating entrepreneurship in Africa. The review method is adopted. The study shows that Africa was at certain stage of her own entrepreneurship before the distortion by colonialism with her new thoughts. It is recommended that, while the various programmes, projects, aid, support and assistance have been designed to boast African Entrepreneurship it should begin from where the interruption started.