Africa has no shortage of entrepreneurs. Across the continent, women in particular are building businesses, creating jobs and responding to market opportunities.
But for Tombozi Mbewe-Ncube, the question Africa must now confront is more fundamental:
Are we building businesses with the capability to grow, compete and participate meaningfully in industrial value chains?
An operations optimisation specialist and SME ecosystem builder, Tombozi brings a practical perspective to Africa’s industrialisation challenge. Her message is that sustainable industrialisation begins with capability.
“The core of how Africa begins to transition into sustainable industrialisation is by building capability.”
For Tombozi, capability means developing businesses that have sound operational systems, governance, processes, standards and the capacity to deliver consistently.
This also requires Africa to rethink how it finances entrepreneurs.
Rather than financing businesses simply because they are active or have a promising idea, Tombozi argues for smarter finance—financing that recognises and rewards businesses demonstrating operational capability, good governance, social responsibility, ESG alignment and strong processes.
Her perspective is particularly important for women entrepreneurs.
Women already make up a significant proportion of Africa’s entrepreneurial base. The challenge, therefore, is not simply to create more women entrepreneurs or provide more seed funding. It is to create pathways that enable women-led businesses to graduate from small enterprises into significant suppliers, employers and industrial players.
As Tombozi puts it, the ambition must move from a woman supplying ten people or employing ten people to building a business capable of supplying thousands or employing thousands.
But achieving this requires more than individual effort.
Tombozi highlights another structural weakness across Africa: fragmentation.
Entrepreneurs often move from one accelerator or support programme to another, repeatedly accessing small amounts of funding without necessarily progressing to the next stage of business growth.
Africa therefore needs greater collaboration between development finance institutions, governments, the private sector, technology providers, accelerators and other ecosystem actors so that support becomes part of a connected pathway rather than a collection of disconnected interventions.
Perhaps her most powerful observation is that Africa does not necessarily lack good policies.
It often lacks the operational pathways that translate those policies into practical action.
A policy may look excellent at the continental or national level, but what matters to the small business owner is much simpler:
How do I access it? What do I need to do? Where do I go? What are the steps?
Without those pathways, even excellent policies and funding mechanisms can fail to reach the entrepreneurs they were designed to support.
Tombozi therefore challenges Africa to build an industrial ecosystem where policy, finance, innovation and entrepreneurship are connected by strong operational systems.
The ultimate objective is not to have more businesses merely surviving.
It is to build businesses capable of serving Africa’s enormous continental market and competing globally.
Africa already has the market. Now it must build the capability to serve it.
The Women in Geopolitics Debate Series is a high-level thought-leadership platform dedicated to amplifying African voices, particularly women’s voices, in conversations on geopolitics, global affairs, governance, leadership and development.
Through dialogue with women leaders, diplomats, policymakers, business leaders, academics and experts from across Africa and beyond, the programme is building a growing archive of African women’s perspectives on the issues shaping our continent and our world.
We invite you to visit the Women in Geopolitics Knowledge Hub on YouTube, explore previous conversations and subscribe as we unveil a new voice every day throughout August.
Madelein Mkunu is the President of Leading Women of Africa (LWA), a Pan-African social enterprise promoting women's leadership in economic development, and the founder of Beyond Boundaries, a global content and advocacy platform amplifying African women’s voices in policy, peacebuilding, and development. A bilingual English–French strategist and accomplished public speaker, she brings over 20 years of experience in gender mainstreaming, inclusive governance, and stakeholder engagement across Africa and globally. She holds an MBA and a Master’s in Management from IEDC-Bled School of Management (Slovenia), a Postgraduate Degree in Development Studies from the University of the Western Cape (South Africa), a Certificate in Leadership from the Dale Carnegie Institute, and is an alumna of Michigan State University’s Women Empowerment Programme. With a background in accounting and a passion for transformative change, Madelein is a trusted advisor to institutions seeking Africa-rooted development solutions.
Contact us: Facebook | Linkedin | Instagram | X | YouTube | Partner
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.