A Constructive Overview of the YES Initiative
The waste uncovered with GYEEDA has contributed to the present environment of cynicism and negativity surrounding the Youth Enterprise Support (YES) initiative of the Mahama administration. Strongly held perceptions that such government led programmes are nothing but vehicles for rewarding partisan loyalists persistently abound. But in a sense this negativity is unhelpful and even unfair. If YES stands a good chance of assisting youth in Ghana to empower themselves and their communities, the programme should be given the space and encouragement take off. The depth of the GYEEDA debacle is perhaps motivation for YES to succeed. As there are already signs of another GYEEDA in the making, alongside encouraging glimpses of the emergence of the kind of high impact innovation fund for transformation needed by this country, this article contributes outlining the way forward in the midst of the dangers stalking the initiative.
First of all, the short to term long term sustainability and survival of YES will hinge on actual transparency in the management of allocated funds and selection of awardees. Also, YES will have to reform itself as it goes. The selection process of winners also requires a partial redesign to ensure its insulation from placing some applicants in a disadvantaged position or being twisted to serve personal and partisan interests. In addition, it is important? to involve more stakeholders from civil society and the private sector as well as individual philanthropists who will contribute funds and give the initiative a more collective and independent shape.
The Virtues of Competition
The YES project is essentially a competition that seeks to reward only the best purely on merit. In theory, back door considerations will not feature. Competitions seek the most able among many aspirants .The assumption is that the duel between ideas leaves no room for maneuvering by informal and interpersonal networks. Therefore, the credibility of this current initiative rests on the perceived fairness of the process, otherwise the purpose is defeated and any immediate injury to the credibility of YES will consign it to the wasteland where the relics of previous bombed government youth and business support initiatives decay in rust.
Mentorship
The provision of training and mentorship to winners is also welcome as it will empower beneficiaries with the tools and attitudes to oversee the transformation of business ideas into viable enterprise. The abundance of brilliant business ideas in Ghana is not matched by widespread management knowhow. Mentorship will help to position beneficiaries to handle the complex challenges of the real world. Seasoned and inspirational people should be tasked with providing this mentoring and training because a high percentage of new enterprises actually fail. This makes the assignment of these mentors a very important one. Their work will depend on the creation of a supportive and motivating environment for both mentor and mentee. The YES mentors and panel of experts to select the winners should have been widely and publicly known by now for the public to be satisfied with their pedigree and integrity. Apart from building public confidence in the programme this openness might even inspire high quality individuals to apply.
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Preference for Agriculture, core sectors
Ghana has priority sectors that need more attention than others because they represent core strengths and possess potential for sustainable development. There are also sectors where some of our core perils reside. Thus, designers of the YES program should be commended for prioritizing agriculture, which continues to employ the largest portion of the labour force, but the list of priority areas must surely increase. Moreover, as YES continues to expand into the ecosystem of entrepreneurship in Ghana, there should be some contextualization in the award of funding. For example, YES can evolve to hold specific competitions for solving identified local or regional problems through innovation and entrepreneurship. Industry leaders in the private sector and public sector that stand to benefit from such innovation can be motivated to sponsor some of these competitions, say, a? competition to provide an easy to make replacement for the polythene bag. Strategically, YES should shepherd competitive innovation into sectors as stipulated by the national development plan and strategy, so that innovation and entrepreneurship will not occur in a vacuum but as part of a national goal. Part of the reason previous ventures wither is because they do not fit any socio-economic pattern on the ground.
Ideas Precede Jobs
The vision of YES seems conflicted. Ideas appear to have been subordinated to jobs. The goal is job creation when it should be pure entrepreneurship and the fostering of brilliant ideas for sustainable business as a prerequisite for jobs. Instead, YES seems to be focused on job creation as the goal itself, before enterprise.? As things stand applicants ideas are going to be examined with emphasis on their early job creation projections, and not their potential for generating sustainability and introducing lasting innovation to the wider economy. A two man start-up with a game changing concept may lead to a wider and longer economic windfall than an idea that promises ten immediate jobs but involves no innovation. This is a scheme for promoting enterprise that wants to be a jobs scheme like GYEEDA.
?Unequal Contest
Competitions sometimes reward not only the best but also the well drilled or supported. Since YES is an economic empowerment scheme, it is important that the design of the competition should target with precision those most in need of this empowerment. Though competitions are still one of the best mechanisms for identifying talented individuals, what is important is the fairness of the competition. ?In the context of the YES programme the open call for full scale proposals at the earliest stage of competition will benefit those with access to experts who develop highly refined proposals for them. ?Competitions of this nature must minimize the risk of replicating existing disparities. ?Access to sophisticated assistance from consultants in the preparation of proposals will disadvantage the unconnected and conceal deserving ideas. It is better if the proposal stage is shifted further back the process and the initial screening is conducted in such a way that applicants submit only a statement of the idea and individuals with the best ideas are invited and supported to submit full proposals, instead of initially having to submit a full proposal or business plans before shortlist and training and mentoring.
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Blind Review Process
Perceptions of partisan considerations have dogged previous interventions such as NYEP-GYEEDA. Occasions for the disbursement of public resources seem to incite suspicions of the hidden influence of nepotism. Thus, a blind review process for the selection of shortlisted candidates should be adopted. A blind review process for YES will mean that the names and information that indentifies applicants should be concealed from the panel at the initial stage of selecting the best business ideas.
Recommendation letters
The application requirement that applicants should accompany their proposals with two recommendation letters from well established entrepreneurs should either be reconsidered or moved further back to the end-stage of the contest. Many factors render problematic this demand for recommendation letters. First, it constitutes an avenue for the corruption of the selection process. The recommendations are vulnerable points for the endorsement of applicants by well connected individuals. Second, ground breaking, game changing ideas tend to sound outrageously unachievable or overambitious and visionaries tend to be eccentric and unsocial. Innovators are not the most popular folks around and may experience difficulty in persuading people to act as referees. Indeed, a cash strapped individual is likely far removed from the networks of the successful. The wide variety in the pedigree of likely recommenders introduces further subjective factors into applicant evaluation external to the business idea at the important stage before short listing. It would have been better if it is quashed as a preliminary requirement and then converted into a guarantor system when winners have been selected and funding is being disbursed. ?By then, individuals should have gained the exposure and publicity to attract supporters.
Medium to Long term
Ten million is a good start and the stipulated maximum limit of fifty thousand obtainable is enough to turn a good dream into a vibrant reality but obviously the fund must grow to support more ventures. For the funding required to be mobilized, the transparency processes must be rigorous, reliable and constantly updated to invite more donors. In this way, the diversity of stakeholders will ensure its long term survival and transformation into a dynamic innovation and enterprise fund for national economic renewal.
YES is a welcome first step. ?The youth of Ghana are ready to energize the socio-economic landscape with their ideas.
Johnson Ayoka
Convener
Center for Innovation and Society
Accra
Johnsonayonka @cis.org/[email protected]
