Research Article

Can Social Innovation Address Journal of Entrepreneurship and

Innovation in Emerging Economies
Africa’s Twin Development 1–18
© The Author(s) 2020
Challenges of Climate Change Reprints and permissions:
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Vulnerability and Forced DOI: 10.1177/2393957520967564
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Migrations?

Dumisani Chirambo1

Abstract
Some studies indicate that climate change policy failures are endemic to policymakers in both developed
and developing countries. Consequently, the increased vulnerability of people in Sub-Saharan Africa
(SSA) can partly be attributed to developed-country stakeholders’ inability to understand climate change
vulnerability in the context of SSA and a fear on the part of policymakers to implement substantive
policy innovations. In order to determine how social innovation and entrepreneurship can be harnessed
to enhance climate change resilience and improve the implementation of the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), an inductive analysis using secondary data consisting of research articles, policy briefs,
project reports and case studies was undertaken. Agribusiness development–focused entrepreneurship
and social innovation were noted to have the potential to facilitate the development of new institutions
and social systems that can correct structural inequalities and improve investments in SSA’s agriculture
sector, thereby reducing local vulnerabilities to climate change and facilitating the attainment of SDG
16 (i.e., promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development). This article is among the
foremost in highlighting how climate change policies that integrate entrepreneurship and rural-to-rural
migration as means to reduce vulnerability can reduce youth unemployment and support the ‘leave no
one behind’ principle.

Keywords
Agribusiness, entrepreneurship, leaving no one behind, polycentric governance, Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), youth unemployment

1
Department of Civil and Public Law, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg, Cottbus, Germany.

Corresponding author:
Dumisani Chirambo, Department of Civil and Public Law, Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg, Erich-
Weinert-Str. 1, LG 10/334, 03046 Cottbus, Germany.
E-mails: sofopportunity@gmail.com; chiradum@tu-cottbus.de
2 Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies

Introduction
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for state and non-state actors to: strengthen resilience
and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries; integrate climate
change measures into national policies, strategies and planning; and improve human and institutional
capacity for climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning (UN, 2015).
However, there is a probability that the SDGs will not be achieved in Africa, because, among other
things, climate change impacts will continue to exacerbate forced displacement and irregular migration,
resource competition, conflicts and poverty (Dumenu & Obeng, 2016; Ghimire et al., 2015). For
example, it is estimated that during 2008–2011, more than 87 million people were displaced by extreme
weather events, with almost all of these displacements happening in economically weak and corrupt
states (Ghimire et al., 2015). Further, the 2015–2016 drought in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) reduced the
gross domestic product (GDP) in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) area by 0.1
per cent and increased the number of poor people by 1.4 million (World Bank, 2017). Moreover, it is
projected that in 2050, an estimated 200 million people will be displaced as a consequence of
environmental change (Black et al., 2011). Climate change is therefore considered as a phenomenon that
increasingly undermines human security in the present day and will increasingly do so in the future by
reducing access to and the quality of natural resources that are important to sustain livelihoods; it is also
likely to undermine the capacity of countries to provide opportunities and services to help people sustain
their livelihoods (Barnett & Adger, 2007).
SSA is disproportionately vulnerable to climate change due to: its greater reliance on agriculture and
other climate-sensitive economic sectors for livelihoods; absence of adaptive infrastructure; rapid
population growth; and limited economic and institutional capacity to cope with, and adapt to, climate
variability and change (Perez et al., 2015; Pulver & Benney, 2013). Moreover, Africa’s urban environments
are characterised by poor urban planning, gaps in public services and infrastructure, settlement in hazard-
prone areas and high levels of poverty, illiteracy and poor health (Wilson & Smith, 2014). Consequently,
rural-to-urban migrations in Africa may therefore not necessarily reduce climate change vulnerability
but actually increase poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, inequality and climate change vulnerability.
Additionally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) considers that regional and
transboundary policies and strategies for climate change adaptation in Africa are still in their infancy
(Niang et al., 2014). Hence, even though African countries have initiated comprehensive planning
processes for climate change, implementation of the climate change programmes and strategies is
lagging. Further, the integration of the climate change programmes and strategies with national economic
and development planning is limited (Bird et al., 2016; CEPA, 2012). This means that regardless of the
existence of various global, regional and national climate change policies, Africa will still have problems
in addressing its current and future climate change impacts unless its policymakers develop and
implement new innovative policies and mechanisms that can simultaneously reduce climate change
vulnerability in rural areas and reduce rural-to-urban migration.
Social innovations are practices that bring about changes in attitudes, behaviour or perceptions,
resulting in new social practices. Social innovation practices bring about changes in the way social
agents act and interact with each other and also changes in the social context in which these actions take
place through the creation of new institutions and new social systems (Cajaiba-Santana, 2014). Other
forms of innovation, such as technological innovation and business innovation, focus mostly on
discovering and diffusing new knowledge and technologies to improve production, and on generating
and recombining ideas to establish a relationship between present efforts and past experiences to solve
future problems (Baskaran & Mehta, 2016; Bitzer & Bijman, 2015). However, the factors that underlie
Chirambo 3

the path of social innovation are not a social problem to be solved but the social change it brings about.
Social innovation is based on collective actions that take place inside a given social system, which are
determined by underlying institutions (Cajaiba-Santana, 2014). Arguably, due to the poor socio-economic
characteristics and weak institutions in SSA, and the potential of social innovation processes to create
new institutional arrangements and patterns of collaboration, social innovation can help address some of
the factors that perpetuate climate change vulnerability, poverty and migration in SSA. Consequently,
there is a need to evaluate which policies, actors and factors can promote social innovation for enhanced
climate risk management and SDGs’ implementation in SSA.
Previous studies on social innovation, climate change policy implementation and migration include
Rodima-Taylor (2012), who undertook research on social innovation and climate adaptation in Tanzania.
Rodima-Taylor (2012) concluded that informal institutions can manage local instabilities by creating a
favourable environment for local initiative and participation, thereby enhancing the livelihood of their
members. Park (2016) looked at clean-energy entrepreneurship in SSA and concluded that institutional
capacity that is necessary to support entrepreneurship, innovation and new venture development for
sustainable development was weak in many SSA countries. Gupta et al. (2015) analysed innovation for
social enterprises in Africa. In their conclusion, Gupta et al. (2015) asserted that in the absence of a
favourable environment for innovation, the impact of social entrepreneurship and social enterprises in
Africa is constrained, since unlike normal business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs operate in an
environment that is marked by institutional voids and market inefficiencies that drive up transaction
costs. Cobbinah et al. (2015) assessed the implications of rapid urbanisation on the sustainable
development of Africa. Cobbinah et al. (2015) discovered that urbanisation has multiple causes—natural
population growth, increasing insecurity and conflict and pull factors (e.g., uneven spatial development
of urban and rural areas, perceived economic opportunities in cities) and push factors (e.g., unprofitable
agriculture, drought, limited livelihood options in rural areas). They also discovered that there was very
limited meaningful guidance available to African governments, planning institutions and policymakers
regarding how best to address these concerns. Park and Brooks (2015) assessed climate change policies
for flood resiliency. They highlighted that climate change policymaking was prone to chronic policy
failures and that existing policy responses to climate change frequently exacerbate the problem. since
climate change issues extend not only across specific media (air, land, water, etc.) but also over political
jurisdictions, landscape boundaries and traditional policy arenas. Arguably, there are still knowledge
gaps on how social innovation can contribute towards better climate change policy development and
implementation in the context of SSA and improve SDGs’ implementation in the areas of poverty
reduction, food security and responsible migration and mobility of people. The aim of this article is
therefore to highlight the potential of social innovation and entrepreneurship in enhancing climate
change resilience and fostering the attainment of the SDGs in SSA.
The article is structured as follows: the second section provides the methodology and conceptual
framework for the article. In the third section, climate change policy failures in developed and developing
countries are expounded through examining weaknesses in policy implementation at the national and
local level. Additionally, this section elaborates on the need to enhance climate change resilience through
innovative climate change policies and polycentric governance systems that focus on alleviating
structural inequalities and adapting to heterogeneous climate change threats. In the fourth section, an
elaboration of the potential roles of rural diversification and agriculture development in enhancing
climate change resilience and reducing rural-to-urban migration through the promotion of inclusive
growth and poverty alleviation is provided. Additionally, the impacts that social innovation and
entrepreneurship could have in reducing climate change vulnerability are highlighted through an
assessment of the Ghana Youth in Agriculture Programme (YiAP) and Mozambique ingrower programme.
4 Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies

The discussion in the fifth section focuses on how social innovation and the promotion of entrepreneurship
in the agricultural sector can increase the capacity of the youth and communities to respond to climate
change risks and improve investments in the agriculture sector. The conclusion in the sixth section points
out that integrating entrepreneurship and social innovation in climate change policies and rural
development policies can: (a) reduce migration by eliminating negative perceptions about rural
livelihoods and agricultural entrepreneurship; (b) support the implementation of SDG 16 (i.e., promote
peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development); and (c) support the principle of ‘leave no
one behind’.

Methodology and Conceptual Framework

In order to achieve the aim of this article (i.e., to highlight the potential of social innovation and
entrepreneurship in the attainment of the SDGs in SSA), an inductive analysis using secondary data
consisting of various research articles, policy briefs, academic literature reviews, project reports and case
studies focusing on the nexus of entrepreneurship, innovation and climate change adaptation was
undertaken. Since the research was inductive in nature, the case studies provided in the article were
identified through purposive sampling. The case studies were intended not to provide a representative or
statistical sample of innovations in enhancing rural and agricultural systems to handle climate change
impacts in SSA, but rather to provide an indication of the different agri-entrepreneurship modalities (i.e.,
profit-sharing and non-profit-sharing models) that are available to national governments, non-governmental
organizations and non-state actors or the private sector as solutions to SSA’s varied and complex challenges
to strengthening local capacity for adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flood and
other disasters. There is a substantial variation in socio-economic conditions between and within rural
populations, and the prevailing agro-ecology in Africa is typically characterised by spatially heterogeneous
and locally homogeneous biophysical conditions, which means that vulnerability assessment requires a
spatially explicit localisation of vulnerable populations to define targeted interventions (van Wesenbeeck
et al., 2016). Consequently, rather than attempting to formulate a conceptual framework on how innovation
and entrepreneurship can influence climate change adaptive capacity, the article focuses on theorising that
innovation and entrepreneurship can: enable communities to increase their income-earning potential and
assets; improve access to, and the utilisation of, technology; and create jobs, thereby improving resilience
to the impacts of climate change and enhancing the implementation of the SDGs (Adenle et al., 2017;
Moore, 2015; Nagler & Naudé, 2017). Such an approach is anticipated to support conceptualisations that
explain how entrepreneurship and innovation help in resolving environmental problems of global socio-
economic systems and how opportunities for creating new products, services and income sources are
inherent in market failures (Dean & McMullen, 2007).

Climate Change Policy Failures in Developed and Developing Countries:

A Systemic Failure?

National-level Policies
Climate change is still a threat to sustainable development, regardless of the existence of various global
and national policies and strategies aimed at minimising climate risks. According to Wilson and Smith
Chirambo 5

(2014), the climate change policy domain is complex, with respect to both climate change science and
projected impacts and the governmental/institutional framework for policy discussions and actions. A
contributing factor to climate change policy failures in some contexts is therefore that climate change
decision-making is more frequently based on insufficient knowledge and limited resources (McKibbin
& Wilcoxen, 2009; Morton et al., 2011; Perez et al., 2015; Thornton & Lipper, 2014). Consequently, it is
difficult to determine future climate risks based on predictions, or to use experience and historical data
to identify and plan for the likely direct and indirect impacts of climate change (Perez et al., 2015). Some
analysts have therefore concluded that between now and 2030, climate policies and stringent global
emission reductions can do little to alter the amount of global warming that will take place, and as such,
adaptation strategies should focus on reducing vulnerability and poverty through targeted adaptation
investments and improved socio-economic conditions (i.e., higher incomes and lower poverty and
inequality) (Biesbroek et al., 2010; Hallegatte et al., 2016).
Africa is usually regarded as a region that has adaptation deficits because of a lack of institutional,
financial or technological capacity to adapt effectively (Bowen et al., 2012; Fankhauser et al., 2015).
However, there are signs to show that climate change policy failures are endemic in both developed and
developing countries (Burch, 2010; Casado-Asensio & Steurer, 2014; Eriksen et al., 2011; Park &
Brooks, 2015). For example, integrated policies and strategies for climate change and sustainable
development, which are used in both developed and developing countries, are only managing to shape
perceptions, enable governments to meet international obligations and provide communication tools to
outline a vision for society; they are failing to build momentum for political commitment that can shape
governmental agendas or major political decisions in favour of more effective climate change action
(Casado-Asensio & Steurer, 2014; Nagoda, 2015; Park & Brooks, 2015).
Developed countries can be considered to be more resilient to the impacts of climate change, as they
have new technologies and institutions to improve climate change mitigation and adaptation (Bowen et
al., 2012; Fankhauser et al., 2015). However, climate change is also arguably retarding growth and
development in developed countries (GCEC, 2014), and policymakers in developed countries have
problems in framing effective climate change policies for both developed countries and developing
countries. These issues are arguably increasing the vulnerability of Africa to the impacts of climate
change, due to the support and inputs that developed-country policymakers provide in the development
and implementation of climate change policies in developing countries. For example, a study by the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, 2014) showed that climate change resilience–building
interventions initiated in Kenya and Uganda by development partners did not include aspects that the
local communities and beneficiaries rated highly as local resilience-building characteristics/factors.
Moreover, developed-country stakeholders mainly use climate impact assessment tools and impact
metrics that have a basis on developed countries’ realities and values rather than universal realities and
values (Serdeczmy et al., 2016) for policy development in both developed countries and developing
countries. Therefore, some climate change policy failures can arguably be attributed to the fact that
developing countries are meant to follow and adopt preservationist and reactionary policies initiated by
developed countries which are altogether inadequate for responding to environmental challenges
presented by climate change (Park & Brooks, 2015) in both developed and developing countries.

Local-level Policies
Local government and local governance systems are growing in prominence as agents for climate change
policy development and implementation. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to local
6 Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies

governance systems as a means for improving climate change resilience, as they are often the closest
entities for planning and implementing adaptation strategies suitable for the particular geographic and
social context in which they are located (Niang et al., 2014; Pasquini et al., 2013). Local governments
(in both urban and rural contexts) also have the potential to address local climate change vulnerabilities,
as they have a mandate and key role to address vulnerabilities through the provision of local infrastructure
and public services and promulgation and regulation of land use and building codes and other local
services, which are crucial for effective adaptation to climate change (Wilson & Smith, 2014). However,
while in theory and in practice the local government is identified as the level of government closest to
community action, given the social, economic and political structures of many developing countries,
mainstreaming climate change adaptation into local planning, policy and implementation is expected to
be challenging because of existing strains on resources and capacity (Pasquini et al., 2013).
Some of the issues that hamper local-level action on climate change policy development and
implementation through local government structures range from individual-level barriers (such as a lack
of understanding of climate change and adaptation options) to regulatory/institutional barriers (such as
the problems posed by party politics) to sociocultural barriers (such as a lack of interest among municipal
constituencies in climate change issues) (Pasquini et al., 2013). Local governance failures manifest
themselves through the inability of a local government to solve socio-economic, infrastructural and
environmental problems. Unfortunately, in cases where there are local governance failures, the affected
households and communities independently adopt measures aimed at reducing climate change impacts
(i.e., autonomous household/community adaptation and spontaneous maladaptation). However, since
autonomous household/community adaptation is unplanned and uncoordinated, in some cases, the
adaptation measures exacerbate vulnerability to extreme weather events such as floods (e.g., autonomous
household/community adaptation by residents in a particular area or settlement may have clear benefits
for the inhabitants there but potentially have cascading effects on the well-being of inhabitants in other
areas) (Mycoo, 2014). Arguably, addressing local governance challenges will therefore call for other
non-state actors such as businesses and entrepreneurs to enhance local responses to climate change,
either individually by implementing initiatives that have a bearing on increasing climate change resilience
at the local level or by collaborating with local governments to implement resilience-building initiatives.

Policy Innovation
With the aforementioned factors in mind, it can be argued that without policy innovations in climate
change policymaking and implementation, Africa will continue to experience climate change–induced
migrations and poverty traps (Hallegatte et al., 2014). Policy innovation can be defined as changes to
existing policy practices which introduce non-status-quo, if not necessarily entirely novel, policy
components or combinations of components, which often result in new outcomes (Howlett, 2014).
According to Howlett (2014), policymakers and decision-makers in democratic polities are highly risk-
averse and therefore unlikely to take policy action unless the circumstances and the nature of the problem
they face are propitious (i.e., giving or indicating a good chance of success). Consequently, in both
developed and developing countries, there have been failures or fear on the part of policymakers to
develop and implement substantive policy innovations, as policymakers exhibit signs of negativity bias
and risk aversion. It is for these reasons that climate change policies often do not encompass major or
far-reaching policy innovations and experiments and many climate change programmes in different
countries have often been procedural and negative in character (Howlett, 2014; Nagoda, 2015 Perez et
Chirambo 7

al., 2015; Wong, 2016;). For example, some climate finance programmes have been shown to exacerbate
climate change vulnerability by ignoring existing gender gaps and structural inequalities, consequently
reinforcing, rather than challenging, women’s subordination in access to land and public participation
(Perez et al., 2015; Wong, 2016).
Non-state actors such as businesses, entrepreneurs and non-governmental organizations can arguably
reduce climate change vulnerabilities by eliminating some social and political drivers of poverty and
vulnerability through social innovation processes that create polycentric climate change governance
systems. According to Ostrom (2008, 2009, 2010), polycentric governance is characterised by an
organisational structure wherein multiple independent actors mutually order their relationships with one
another under a general system of rules. As opposed to monocentric hierarchies, polycentric systems can
function independently or form an interdependent system of relations in order to address collective-
action problems, free-rider problems and social dilemmas associated with climate change mitigation and
adaptation (Ostrom, 2008, 2009, 2010). Some climate change polices have been criticised for not being
responsive enough to local needs as they prescribe one-size-fits-all measures that fail to address the
complex combinations of socio-economic, political and environmental factors that act and interact to
influence vulnerability to climate change (Dumenu & Obeng, 2016). However, since actors within a
polycentric system can independently decide on how to improve climate change resilience within their
local setting but still be in compliance with the ‘general system of rules’, polycentric systems provide
efficient and adaptable mechanisms for responding to the heterogeneous and ever-changing spatial and
temporal threats of climate change.

Africa’s Migration, Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation Nexus

Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation as Means for Reducing Climate Change Vulnerability
Regardless of SSA’s urban areas having better access to employment opportunities and social services
than rural areas, urbanisation and rural-to-urban migration, at least in the case of SSA, are not solutions
for reducing poverty and climate change vulnerability. This follows the fact that urbanisation and
agglomeration in cities are on average associated with faster growth but higher income inequality, while
rural diversification typically facilitates a more inclusive but slower growth process. Studies in rural
Kagera (Tanzania) showed that about one in two individuals/households who exited poverty did so by
transitioning from agriculture to the rural non-farm economy, while one in seven exited poverty by
migrating to a large city (Christiaensen & Todo, 2014; Christiaensen et al., 2013).
Arguably, the advent of a natural hazard or climatic/environmental shock might not motivate people
to migrate, but when a natural hazard or climatic/environmental shock intensifies traditional poverty
and inequalities, the affected people and communities might be compelled to migrate in order to find
employment (Ghimire et al., 2015). Therefore, since migration is sometimes a response to a weakening
of local socio-economic institutions due to a natural hazard or climatic/environmental shock and not
a direct result of the natural hazard or climatic/environmental shock itself, climate change policies
may be integrated with entrepreneurship policies and strategies. This follows that entrepreneurship
facilitates breakthrough innovations that influence the growth of national and local economies, and
entrepreneurs exploit opportunities brought by change even though those changes are not necessarily
caused by them (Iyigun, 2015). Promoting entrepreneurship can therefore enable rural communities to
strengthen their socio-economic institutions and become climate-resilient based on a combination of
8 Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies

farm and non-farm activities. In conjunction with promoting entrepreneurship, social innovation
processes can also be used to create social capital (informal networks), which can enable communities
and entrepreneurs to mobilise and reorganise themselves to reduce their vulnerability to climate
change impacts and recover from environmental shocks with limited external support, even with an
increased magnitude of natural hazards and climatic/environmental shocks (Becchetti & Castriota,
2011; Marincioni et al., 2013).

4.2 Youth Entrepreneurship as a Strategy for Enhancing Climate Change Resilience

In Africa, 10 million young Africans enter the continent’s workforce annually, since Africa is the fastest
growing continent in the world, and more than half of the global population growth between now and
2050 is expected to occur in Africa (AGRA, 2015). More than two-thirds of the economically active
population in SSA are employed in agriculture, with the proportion of young workers in some cases
being even higher (Conceição et al., 2016). Therefore, despite high rates of migration to urban areas,
most SSA youth continue to reside in rural areas and will continue to do so over the coming years, and
without sufficient opportunities in manufacturing or services to engage the youth, agriculture will
remain a significant sink of labour and source of economic opportunity (Moore, 2015). The World
Economic Forum (WEF, 2015) estimated that in 2015, approximately 200 million people were out of a
job globally, and the numbers were forecasted to rise to 215 million job seekers by 2018. Additionally,
within the given estimate, there were 75 million unemployed youths, and generally, the youth are three
times more likely to be out of a job than adults. Since youth unemployment is significantly associated
with an increase in the risk of social and political instability (Azeng & Yogo, 2013), creating youth
employment opportunities through agribusinesses and agricultural value chains is a rural development
priority—these offer a means to address socioeconomic inequalities and promote sustainable
opportunities for income generation, agricultural growth and food security for a growing population
(Azeng & Yogo, 2013; Jones & Tarp, 2015; Moore, 2015). A lot of literature and development studies
already emphasise how agriculture-based interventions have direct poverty reduction effects and strong
growth linkage effects on the rest of the economy (Thornton & Lipper, 2014; World Bank, 2009)
(Table 1). However, it can be argued that to achieve sustainable development and reduce (youth) rural-
to-urban migration, more emphasis should be placed on improving perceptions about agriculture and
reducing the risks associated with agriculture. This is imperative, as some studies indicate that Africa’s
youth are marginalised in terms of access to land, farm machinery, financial services and agricultural
training (AGRA, 2015; FAO 2014a, 2014b), which increases their risks in engaging in agriculture/
agribusiness as a career (i.e., agricultural risks deters Africa’s youth from venturing into commercial
farming). On the other hand, people’s behaviour is mostly shaped by their perceptions of matters, rather
than by the actual patterns of matters as measured by scientific methods (Bryan et al., 2013).
Unfortunately, some studies point out that SSA’s rural youth are not willing to take agriculture as their
main occupation because they have a negative perception about farming (i.e., they view farming as an
occupation with low income and low economic returns, and they see farmers as uneducated and
unskilled labourers) (MoFA, 2011).
Chirambo 9

Table 1. The Effects of Growth in Agriculture on Poverty in Africa Compared with Growth in Other Sectors

Agriculture Effect Indicator Other Sectors

Growth in agricultural GDP is 2.9 times more in increasing the average than growth in non-
per agricultural worker effective income of the poorest 20% agricultural GDP.
A 1% increase in agricultural is 2.7 times more in reducing the 1-USD-a-day than growth in industry.
GDP per capita effective poverty rate
Agricultural GDP growth is 2.9 times more in reducing the 1-USD-a-day than growth in
effective poverty rate manufacturing.
A 1% increase in agricultural is 3 times more in increasing household than non-agricultural
GDP effective spending in the poorest growth.
households
Agricultural GDP growth is 4 times more in reducing the 1-USD-a-day than non-agricultural
effective poverty rate growth.
Agricultural GDP growth is 1.3 times more in reducing the 2-USD-a-day than non-agricultural
effective poverty rate growth.
Source: Conceição et al. (2016).

Ajufo (2013) suggested that youth unemployment in Africa is partly a consequence of a mismatch
between the skills of the youth and labour market demands, market failures and externalities. Youth
unemployment may therefore possibly be addressed by instigating policies and strategies that prioritise
developing a special focus on career guidance and counselling support in schools, and introducing
entrepreneurship education into school curriculums. These measures should be complemented by
promoting investments in agriculture, supporting entrepreneurial training and providing start-up capital
to enable young school-leavers to become creators rather than seekers of jobs (Baah-Boateng, 2013).
Arguably, the supply of youthful labour in Africa should be considered as an opportunity for enhancing
entrepreneurship in the continent. First, Africa is food-insecure, as the continent has frequent production
failures and food imports into Africa have exceeded exports since 2003 (AGRA, 2015; UNECA, 2013);
hence, efforts to make Africa food-secure can create various employment opportunities in various
agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. Second, youth employment in Africa is a problem mainly
caused by the focus of many people and the youth on wage jobs (Baah-Boateng, 2013; Jones & Tarp,
2015) and the focus of many climate change policies and agricultural development interventions being
exclusively geared towards market integration, or away from dependency on agriculture, even though
this leads to food insecurity (Milgroom & Giller, 2013). This consequently makes African countries miss
out on the opportunities that are present in establishing productive and pro-poor ventures, especially in
agriculture and its associated non-production-related value chain enterprises (i.e., complementary
services and jobs in providing farming inputs like seeds and fertilisers, financial products, irrigation
equipment, renewable-energy technologies, refrigeration, research and development, transport and
distribution, information and communication technologies [ICT], access to markets, processing, storage,
retailing, etc.) (AGRA, 2015).
10 Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies

Social Innovation Case Studies

Case 1: Ghana Youth in Agriculture Programme
The Government of Ghana introduced the YiAP in 2009 as a strategy to improve agricultural development
and reduce youth unemployment in Ghana. The programme incentivised the youth’s entry into the
agriculture sector by providing training and production resources (inputs and services) to the youth in the
programme districts. The youth therefore had easy access to tractors, irrigation and mechanisation
systems, quality planting materials (improved seeds), subsidised fertilisers, pesticides, extension
information, technical support, marketing avenues, etc. (MoFA, 2009). The programme is recorded to
have provided financial opportunities to 80,000 beneficiaries cultivating about 47,000 ha of land in 2009
and 2010 (Ohene, 2013). The YiAP may be considered innovative, as the government acquired land to
establish block farms in various districts of Ghana so that the youth could share various tracts of land and
resources that they could not access on their own. Through block farming, it was also easier for the
government to easily provide inputs, technical services and financial services to the youth at subsidised
prices (Ohene, 2013). All these factors therefore reduced the barriers for the youth to enter into farming
and reduced most agricultural risks for them while creating new networks and institutions to support the
youth and communities to create jobs and produce food.
Case 2: Mozambique Ingrower Programme
Ingrower is a profit-sharing agribusiness model wherein young entrepreneurs use pooled resources in
order to achieve economies of scale for production, market access, financial support and technical
support. The ingrower model is private-sector-led, and hence financiers provide equity investments,
loans and grants to ingrower programmes in various countries in return for financial profit and social
impact. Ingrower entrepreneurs are provided with training, production facilities, land, irrigation,
capital, marketing and business support to reduce most agriculture business risks. Ingrower entrepreneurs
run their own businesses inside an ingrower programme, and hence they produce independent business
plans, budgets, book-keeping accounts and bank accounts, and profit from the production is shared
50/50 between the entrepreneurs and the ingrower programme implementers and financiers
(DanishKnowHow, 2016).
Unemployment is caused not just by a lack of jobs (in developed and developing countries) but also
by a lack of job skills due to inadequate training infrastructure and a lack of means to acquire relevant
skills due to poverty and institutional bottlenecks. Consequently, even in developed countries, special
interventions and initiatives are implemented by various agencies in order to reduce unemployment
through skills development. For example, the European Social Fund was created to, among other things,
facilitate the re-training of individuals in new skills for the jobs that were in demand, provide the youth
with work-related skills that could lead to stable employment, support the establishment of social
enterprises and facilitate the creation of microfinance programmes to improve access to capital for small
businesses (European Commission, 2016). Ingrower programmes can therefore be seen as platforms for
providing and developing new skills for unemployed African people, as they provide opportunities for
hands-on business experience to run and develop an agribusiness within an established entrepreneurship
and mentorship ecosystem. They can be seen to be creating economic opportunities in rural areas, as
reports from the ingrower programme in Mozambique showed that some ingrower entrepreneurs reached
a yearly gross profit of US$6,600.00, getting an income of about US$3,300.00 per year (DanishKnowHow,
2016). Such an income could be considered significant, as alternative job possibilities in the programme
area were minimal and, in comparison, the salary of a field worker in Mozambique was US$1,500.00 per
year (DanishKnowHow, 2016).
Chirambo 11

The Ghana YiAP and Mozambique ingrower programme may be considered as agricultural and
entrepreneurial social innovations or business models founded on social innovation processes. According
to Cajaiba-Santana (2014), typical outcomes of social innovation might be manifold, taking the form of
new institutions, new social movements, new social practices or different structures of collaborative
work. This can be attributed to social innovation processes having varied sources and social innovations
assuming their form and being disseminated via the market (such as new services, business models,
logistics and application concepts), via governmental guidelines and support, via intermediary and self-
organised institutions, such as foundations, and via the effect of charismatic individuals or social
entrepreneurs through change-oriented capacity-building (Cajaiba-Santana, 2014).
Not all types of agricultural development are equally effective in improving food security and
promoting broad-based economic development, but science-based and employment-intensive agricultural
growth provides the most effective way to kick-start growth, reduce poverty, enhance food availability
and entitlements and accelerate human development (Conceição et al., 2016). Unlike other agricultural
business models and poverty reduction strategies, the Ghana YiAP and Mozambique ingrower programme
do not just aim to improve agricultural market linkages and improve supply links at minimal price and
cost, but are also more holistic, as they are based on empowering people with various skills and have a
focus on empowering the youth, women and other marginalised sectors of society to reduce social
inequalities. This is particularly important in that unlike the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
which were criticised for improving the welfare of the relatively better off rather than those who were
the most vulnerable and marginalised and widening rather than narrowing deprivations in some cases,
through the SDGs, global leaders have made a commitment to ‘leave no one behind’ (i.e., global leaders
have made a commitment that non-income-based inequalities will be tackled, that governments will
attempt to ensure that marginalised groups make progress more quickly than the average and that
development programmes will endeavour to reach the furthest behind first rather than picking off the
low-hanging fruit) (Stuart & Woodroffe, 2016).
Even though both case studies/programmes have a significant bearing through indirectly addressing
factors that induce migration and local climate change vulnerabilities such as youth unemployment and
waning agricultural productivity, as caused by local-level structural problems in mobilising capital, land,
technical expertise and production facilities, the programmes were developed to neither directly support
the implementation of the SDGs nor enable local communities to sufficiently address their climate
change vulnerabilities (through entrepreneurship and polycentric climate change governance). However,
this study has shown that there could be merits in scaling up and replicating these models in more
districts and more countries, as they have the potential to address a multitude of interconnected drivers
of migration, poverty and climate change vulnerability in the context of SSA and can be implemented by
non-governmental organizations, national governments and non-state actors. More importantly, these
models can be adapted to create effective polycentric climate change governance systems whereby
initiating a business or project based on either model in a particular district can enhance climate change
resilience at the local level. Further, when all the pertinent businesses and projects in all districts are
viewed at the national level, their cumulative impact on reducing climate change vulnerabilities and
migration could be better than through monocentric climate change projects and programmes.

Discussion
In the context of SSA, understanding the links between climate change, unemployment and migration is
important, since climate change can constrain agricultural development and food security, thereby
12 Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies

perpetuating socio-economic inequalities and social conflicts (Dumenu & Obeng, 2016; Ghimire et al.,
2015; van Wesenbeeck et al., 2016; Wong, 2016). Migration in SSA is partly a consequence of under-
investments in the agriculture sector which perpetuate poverty. Historical evidence, through the
implementation of the MDGs, shows that Africa as a whole did not meet MDG 1 of halving poverty and
hunger. This situation occurred possibly because the continent’s total public spending on agriculture as
a share of public spending fell far short of the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development
Programme (CAADP) target of 10 per cent (IFPRI, 2016). Additionally, Africa’s agriculture sector is
much under-invested, and neither domestic aid nor foreign aid has increased appropriately to promote
sustainable and resilient agriculture in SSA (aid to agriculture accounted for 22.5% of total aid to all
sectors in 1979–1981, but this reduced to 6.0% in 2006–2008) (Huang & Wang, 2014). In contrast, Latin
American countries achieved several of the MDGs, including the poverty and hunger goals, due to
investments in their agricultural sectors, strong agricultural growth and expanded social safety nets
(IFPRI, 2016; World Bank, 2009). Arguably, more investments in Africa’s agriculture sector and rural
infrastructure can go a long way in ensuring that the SDGs are achieved, as comprehensive plans
integrating climate change adaptation, agriculture development and rural development can simultaneously
reduce poverty, inequality and migration. This can subsequently lead to the attainment of SDG 16, since
socio-economic grievances, insufficient opportunities for people to earn livelihoods and a lack of broad-
based economic growth are common sources of conflict and migrations.
Generally, most policymakers understand that anticipating future climate change impacts is
problematic; hence, building resilience is key to reducing climate change–induced adverse impacts and
migration, as doing so can make it possible for a system to deal with surprising and unexpected stress
(Perez et al., 2015). However, the challenge is to find points of intervention in a system to increase its
resilience to future changes, including unforeseeable ones (Perez et al., 2015). Arguably, promoting
social entrepreneurship (i.e., the application of the entrepreneurial approach towards the primary goal of
meeting societal goals) and institutional entrepreneurship (i.e., the effort to change institutions such as
market regulations despite pressures towards stasis) (Schaltegger & Wagner, 2011) in SSA’s agricultural
sector could provide good foundations or primary intervention areas to enhance climate change resilience.
For example, it has been stated that one of the main differences between developing countries and
developed countries in responding to climate change is that developed countries are likely to mitigate
climate change problems through technological innovation and institutional redesign, whereas people in
developing countries lack wealth and expertise and hence leave the affected areas or migrate when faced
with severe environmental problems (Reuveny, 2007). However, as elaborated in the previous sections,
knowledge on climate change can be increased and climate change risks in communities can be reduced
through social innovation and the promotion of entrepreneurship activities in the agricultural sector. In
this regard, social innovation and entrepreneurship can build the capacities of the youth and communities
to redesign rural (formal and informal) institutions and this can eventually enable communities to have
improved access to financial services and products, hybrid inputs, machinery, business management
training, professional networks and extension services.
Some studies on climate change adaptation in the agricultural sector emphasise that crop production
risks and poverty increases as climate parameters become highly unpredictable and unreliable (Elum et
al., 2016; FAO, 2014a). However, this study has also highlighted that governments, non-governmental
organizations and non-state actors can develop business models and programmes that can support the
youth to develop their entrepreneurial skills and develop innovations in the agriculture sector as a means
to reduce climate risks and facilitate the implementation of the SDGs. Additionally, the findings in this
article support other literature that considers promoting entrepreneurship as a viable strategy to limit
agricultural risks and enhance climate change resilience. For example, Jones & Tarp (2015) and Adenle
Chirambo 13

et al. (2017) considered entrepreneurship and agribusiness development to be important factors that
improved household welfare and employment creation, which could lead to increased circulation of cash
in rural locations and raise the demand for non-agricultural goods and services, hence creating
opportunities to shift to higher-returns activities. Moreover, the ingrower programme, in addition to
being implemented in Mozambique, will also be replicated in Nigeria and Uganda. This arguably
demonstrates the potential that innovative profit-sharing youth entrepreneurship agribusiness models
have in creating employment and fostering rural development regardless of current and future crop
production risks, and it supports notions, such as those of Dean and McMullen (2007), that through
entrepreneurship, market failures and challenges can be turned into opportunities.
Of equal importance are also the assertions that an obstacle to entrepreneurship in SSA is that young
entrepreneurs in the region over-report the shortage of finance and underestimate the lack of business
skills as a barrier to entrepreneurship (Brixiova et al., 2015). However, the two business models/case
studies demonstrate that some initiatives place an emphasis not only on the provision of finance to the
youth and entrepreneurs but also on the provision of technical support to provide beneficiaries with
knowledge that can enable them to create sustainable enterprises. The emphasis on skills development
for young entrepreneurs is even more important, since other commentators have argued that financial
investments and funding of projects and businesses in Africa is lagging not as a result of lack of
availability of funding sources locally and internationally but because of lack of viable packaged and
bankable projects (Afful-Koomson, 2015). This is substantiated by claims that Africa’s diaspora and
migrant population have the potential to provide more than US$100 billion a year to help develop Africa,
and there is also an estimated US$50 billion in diaspora savings that could be leveraged for low-cost
project finance (Arezki & Brückner, 2012; Chirambo, 2017). Thus, with more agriculture-based youth
entrepreneurship models, such as the YiaP and ingrower, and more emphasis on improving business
skills, it can be argued, not only will there be a higher likelihood that more youth entrepreneurs will gain
the competencies to develop bankable and investable enterprises that will improve their access to finance
from various sources and attract substantial private sector investments in the agriculture sector, but they
could also encourage more entrepreneurs to venture into the agriculture sector, as currently, despite the
many positive impacts of the agriculture sector on poverty, economic growth and climate change
resilience, many youth entrepreneurs prefer venturing into the retail or hospitality sector regardless of
the low job growth potential in these sectors (Brixiova et al., 2015).

Conclusion
Entrepreneurship and social innovation processes can facilitate the development of new institutions and
new social systems and practices that have the potential to improve perceptions about rural livelihoods
and enhance climate change resilience. By combining entrepreneurship and social innovation, it may
therefore be possible to reduce forced displacements, reduce conflict and facilitate responsible migration
and mobility of people in SSA, as entrepreneurship and social innovation can address the determinants
of climate change vulnerability and migration that are ignored in many climate change policies (the
aspects that influence vulnerability and migration but are usually ignored or not addressed in many
climate change programmes and policies include structural inequalities, power relations, local decision-
making and access to resources by various individuals and households within a community). Additionally,
rural poverty and climate change vulnerability are sometimes exacerbated by negative perceptions about
farming and lack of training facilities to impart to the youth and other marginalised people strong
14 Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies

agriculture-based entrepreneurial skills. However, by integrating agriculture-focused youth

entrepreneurship programmes and business models in climate change and rural development strategies,
non-governmental organizations, non-state actors and government agencies may be able to create
development programmes that are apolitical and specific to the skills, education and resource constraints
of a particular area, hence improving the implementation of SDG 16 and the principle of ‘leave no one
behind’. Consequently, climate change policies in SSA that integrate youth entrepreneurship and rural-
to-rural migration as a means to reduce climate change vulnerability may have better socio-economic
outcomes than climate change policies that promote rural-to-urban migration and a dependency away
from agriculture as a means to reduce climate change vulnerability.
Some research on climate change adaptation highlights that innovation is essential for addressing
climate change, but technological innovation alone is insufficient to address climate change challenges;
hence, there should be a greater focus on research, policy and practice in the area of (bottom-up) social
innovation for climate change management (Bergman et al., 2010). According to Bergman et al. (2010),
social innovation emerges from the interaction of less powerful actors and meets regulatory, institutional
and resource barriers that its primary stakeholders have less ability to overcome. In this article, two
entrepreneurship-focused agriculture sector models for addressing youth unemployment were analysed,
and their potential to enhance climate change resilience through the entrepreneurship, innovation and
climate change adaptation nexus was highlighted. The study highlighted how positioning youth
entrepreneurs in structured agribusiness youth unemployment programmes and profit-sharing schemes
can lead to better climate change resilience. Hence, arguably, the study supports theories and
conceptualisations such as that of Bergman et al. (2010) that consider social innovation and the
collaborative actions of innovative actors/entrepreneurs/sustainability entrepreneurs as more important
than technological innovation to address climate change challenges.
In order to develop further the findings of this research, future studies may focus on how social
innovation may be used to encourage more female entrepreneurs to enter the agriculture sector. This
follows the observation that even in some instances where women in certain communities were provided
with equal access to land, financial services and technologies as men, their participation in agricultural
entrepreneurial activities was below that of men (Ohene, 2013).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of
this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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