Economist Tânia Tomé backs entrepreneurship training

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Economist Tânia Tomé backs entrepreneurship training

8:57 CAT | 21 Nov 2018

Tânia Tomé. Picture: O País

Mozambican economist Tânia Tomé, one of the speakers at the second Mozefo Young Leaders forum to take place on November 20 to 29 in Maputo, will share her experience of 20 years in entrepreneurship and argue that it is necessary to include entrepreneurship in the education curriculum.

Tânia Tomé has been a specialist in entrepreneurship for 20 years, and will share her experience with the more than 2,000 young people expected to participate in this edition of Mozefo Young Leaders. She acknowledges that there are still challenges in youth entrepreneurship and urges greater appreciation for small entrepreneurs.

“In our country, 98.5 percent of all enterprises fall into the small and medium category, and in fact more than 80 percent are micro-enterprises, 70 percent in the informal market. These all need to be leveraged,” she argues.

“Many survival entrepreneurs daily create, invent and do spectacular things. The entrepreneurship system in Mozambique needs to seek out and leverage these survival entrepreneurs.”

One of Tomé’s main goals is the inclusion of entrepreneurship in the training of young people.

“Entrepreneurship also needs to be sustained. When I speak of sustainability, I mean that we should not just think of ourselves or the young people of today only. We have to think about investing in children, in education systems that are really promoting entrepreneurship and promoting effective, ethical, national unity and long-term thinking,” she explains.

“This is the transformative effect when we talk about young people today. But if we go back to the children, we’ll realise that it’s only 20 or 30 years from now that we will be able to create the generation of young entrepreneurs.”

She also argues that young people should, above all, believe in their abilities. “The results of Mozefo and Mozefo Young Leaders, in particular, are this – this journey we are making. We are not going to get all the results we want today, but the steps are being taken to search out, through this platform, all those players who are important in the process.”

Tomé has worked as an entrepreneurship coach and shared her experiences in several countries in and outside of Africa.

By José João