The case of Mozambique and the School of Business and Entrepreneurship Chibuto (ESNEC)

Mozambique is a developing country in sub-Saharan Africa, where the theme of entrepreneurship is assuming particular importance.

Mozambique became independent from Portugal in 1975, after which FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique/ Mozambique Liberation Front), the independence movement, implemented and lead a single-party, socialist regime. During this time, beginning in 1977, Mozambique suffered a devastating civil war, as a result of opposing FRELIMO and RENAMO (Resistencia Nacional Moçambicana/Mozambican National Resistance). In 1990, through a new constitution, the country introduced a multiparty democracy and recognized the role of market forces in efficiently allocating resources. The civil war ended in 1992, with an agreement to hold multiparty elections. In 1994, the country held its first multiparty elections, in which FRELIMO was elected as the majority party in parliament. Since then, the country has remained relatively stable as a presidential republic.

Mozambique has experienced sustained economic growth since the end of the war, increased foreign direct investment and the diversification of its private sector 1.

Due to the stable macroeconomic environment and the implementation of programmes and socio-economic reforms, Mozambique recorded an annual average economic GDP growth of 8.1% during the period 1995 to 2012, representing one of the highest in the world. This strong real GDP growth has been influenced by increased foreign and domestic investment, access to finance, technology transfer and gains through investment in education and infrastructure. Since 2000, growth has also been driven by investments in large projects 2. In the past 10 years, the economy has proved to be increasingly robust and resilient to external and internal shocks. Despite the financial and food crisis that had an impact on the national economy, the country continued to show high and stable economic growth. Over the past four years, the average inflation was 7.1% and real GDP grew on average by about 7.0% per year. In 2012, real GDP grew by 7.2% and the GDP per capita was USD608.1 Agriculture is the sector that has most contributed to domestic production. Over the past 10 years, agriculture had an average GDP share of 23.3%. The manufacturing sector is the second largest contributor with a share of 13.5%. Sectors of trade and transport and communication services contributed 10.9% and 10.5%, respectively 3.

While the Mozambican economy has made significant progress in the past 10 years in its reported growth and its efforts to improve the investment climate, it still has a low ranking among international indicators of competitiveness and business environment (see Table 7.1). This is related to poor access to finance, the perceived prevalence of corruption, inefficient government bureaucracy, an inadequate infrastructure and the lacking education level of the workforce 4. Additionally, among the population, there is a perceived inferiority of entrepreneurship as a career choice 5

Human development indicators, namely the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Human Development Index Adjusted Gender (IDG), has shown positive trend results in Mozambique primarily from the results achieved in economic growth, access to education, longevity and reduced gender inequality in terms of access to income (INE and PNUD in 6). However, this evolution coexists with high levels of informal sectors, high rates of unemployment (especially among the youth) and a large part of the population living in poverty. According to the Population Census 2007, the Mozambican population was estimated at 20.6 million inhabitants, of which nearly 10 million live in poverty, with problems related to food insecurity, low incomes and unemployment. The Mozambican population has been growing at a rate of 2.4%. The National Institute of Statistics' (INE) population projections indicate that by 2035, the final year of implementation of the National Development Strategy, the country will have a population of roughly 41.5 million 7.

The poverty rate of the population decreased from 69.4% in 1997 to 54.7% in 2008, but the poverty situation stagnated from 2003 to 2008. In this context, the government is accelerating measures aimed at reducing poverty levels by adopting policies and actions conducive to human capital development, including the improvement of basic social services and increased business initiatives that will contribute to increased production and the generation of employment and incomes for Mozambicans, particularly for the youth and women.

Meanwhile, domestic small and medium enterprises and locally owned business ventures lag behind and experience low labour productivity. The formal sector employs only 11.1% of the total labour force, 4.1% of which is in the public sector. With a total labour force of 10.1 million, it is estimated that 52.3% of Mozambicans are self-employed informal workers and that 11.5% are family workers that do not receive remunerations. The unemployment rate remains above 21% and is higher among young adults, including university graduates. It is estimated that about 300 000 youth enter the labour market each year 8.

In recent years, initiatives by the Mozambican Government and other civil society organizations for supporting entrepreneurship has multiplied with the aim of improving the level of development, reducing poverty and enhancing social inclusion. Many of these programmes target vulnerable potential entrepreneurs, aiming at poverty reduction rather than skill acquisition (see Table 7.2).

The introduction of the Economic Rehabilitation Programme (PRES) in 1987, targeted at demobilizing soldiers when the civil war ended, constituted the first step towards Mozambique moving away from a centrally planned economy. Seen as a potential catalyst for peace and stability through the support of self-employment initiatives, the programmes were later expanded to target vulnerable groups, particularly women, former refugees and those who had been severely affected by the war 9. Development partners also became increasingly active in entrepreneurship education and training in the late 1990s through two key development institutions: the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDPs) Enterprise Mozambique, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the All India Manufactors’ Organization (AIMO) Industrial Development Advisory Centre (CADI) 10.

Programmes focused on youth, often making job acquisition a priority. In the case of the Entrepreneurship Education Programme, a secondary school programme, an entrepreneurship curricula has been introduced in secondary and professional schools since 2004 (see 11), which is aimed at developing an understanding of business principles and to encourage the development of entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviours. Other programmes target higher education students as potential high-growth entrepreneurs.

In the National Development Strategy (2015 to 2035) document 12, under the challenges and opportunities for development, knowledge is pointed out as "crucial to the achievement of socio-economic dynamics that occur in the country as it allows for creating new capabilities and patterns of economic development. Thus, investments in education and research, allied to science and technology are key factors for catalysing the production process and the economic competitiveness of the country" (p. 10). Moreover, included among the challenges for the development of the private sector is market-oriented training. It is not surprising therefore that the first pillar of the National Development Strategy is the "Development of human capital (training oriented to market establishment and expansion of vocational education...)" (p. vi).

The change towards a more entrepreneurial mindset and attitudes are also expressed as one of the fundamental factors for the success of the National Development Strategy: "The change in mentality is also meant to instil a proactive spirit in Mozambicans toward work and especially in the search for efficient and peaceful solutions to the challenges facing the development of the country. Assuming a posture of proactivity and creativity in seeking solutions to the country's development means looking at the individual and collective future in a promising and encouraging manner, where Mozambicans can, through work, access development opportunities that arise in the country and thereby improve their welfare" (p.52). To achieve this goal, the government also makes evident the importance of collaborative networks between different actors of the society: "To develop, a society depends on... individual action, as partnerships between citizens, civil society representatives and elected officials, administration and utilities, businesses, as well as unions, all contributing in different ways" (p. 52).

Thus, for both economic and social reasons, entrepreneurship education represents one of the main concerns of the Mozambican Government. One of axes of the National Agenda to Combat Poverty is to promote entrepreneurship through the education system, highlighting the support of entrepreneurship at the level of HEIs 13. This support includes the introduction of entrepreneurship courses and courses related to business creation and local development, in order to both prepare and motivate graduate students to consider entrepreneurship as a possible professional career and to develop entrepreneurial behaviour. One of the main challenges of this agenda is the expansion of the higher education system, as well as the improvement of its quality and internal efficiency. Indeed, reports regarding the results of the National Programme for the Fight Against Poverty in Mozambique makes it evident that the results of the government's financial support, "about 7 million" (including many failures among the projects funded) include gaps concerning the implementation of teaching entrepreneurship in higher education institutions, as well as its objectives and its effectiveness with respect to providing guidance to students to learn to become entrepreneurs, or to be scholars in entrepreneurship. Thus, it is expected that all HEIs, regardless of location and curriculum content, act as incubators for entrepreneurial skills and innovative ideas capable of transforming various resources into wealth. For this reason, in some cases, beyond school education about entrepreneurship, HEIs have also promoted the incubation of new businesses in order to "strengthen the intervention of the network of institutions engaged in the development capacity to manage and implement business" ( 14, p. 212).

Thus, entrepreneurship education is increasingly prevalent in Mozambique’s higher education institutions. In 15, three institutions are identified that combined, enrol more than half of the country’s higher education students: Instituto Superior de Ciências e Tecnologia de Moçambique (Higher Education Institute of Science and Technology of Mozambique), the Pedagogical University and Eduardo Mondlane University. The first of these institutions hosts the Empresa Junior programme, which includes workshops and a business plan competition for providing students exposure to entrepreneurship processes. The Pedagogical University, in partnership with UNIDO, designed an entrepreneurship course for training teachers about entrepreneurship in 2009 (for secondary schools). In this university, “entrepreneurship” is both a degree and a cross-course discipline within the curriculum of different degrees. At Eduardo Mondlane University, students take a required entrepreneurship course regardless of their area of study. This latter university also opened an Entrepreneurship Higher Education School, the Escola Superior de Negócios e Empreendedorismo de Chibuto (ESNEC), which conducts courses on business management and leadership. This school is the focus of the following paragraphs.

The ESNEC, one of the five schools of the University Eduardo Mondlane, was created by the approval of the University Council at its meeting on 25 November 2008 and its mission is: "To develop the human resource capacity in the identification of business opportunities and transforming them into wealth". This school began its activities on 2 March 2009 and currently has about 790 students and 52 teachers (47 full-time and five part-time) teaching courses in Finance, Management and Leadership, Agro-Business, Retail and Commercial Agriculture.

One of the distinctive aspects of this school, compared to other schools of the University Eduardo Mondlane, as well as other HEIs in Mozambique, is the introduction of "entrepreneurship and business creation” and “business plan” courses in all the degrees taught in the school. Another strength of this school as it relates to entrepreneurship education is the development of business projects, not only with students, but also with local small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, thereby creating a space for interaction with local communities.

The school has been implementing agreements/projects for developing the skills of teachers, students and local entrepreneurs, e.g., SMETOOLKIT, which enables students, teachers and small businesses to use management tools for SMEs. Business Edge aims to enable teachers, businessmen and students in organizations, administration and business management, as well as in other short training projects related to hotel services, namely English and computer training. Since 2011  16 - , the school has implemented the NICHE project, which includes the Development of a Sustainable Trade Academy, the aim of which is empower teachers and enable graduate students to develop a business through a business incubator. This incubator intends to serve as “a space where theory and practice can coexist and where different actors in the public and private sector can complement their interests”. This is a project whose goals are to develop a sustainable business academy that guides graduates to respond to the expectations of the growth and development of agriculture and trade in the country. Another objective of this project is to allow staff and students to participate in courses of action pertaining to research and sustainable business management in order to obtain the ability to advise the various actors such as associations of producers, traders and financial institutions in the agricultural sector, as well as commercial actors through a model of student-centred teaching. Thus, the NICHE project aims to guarantee results in the form of the improvement of the profile of its graduates, thereby adapting them to market needs.

With the above in mind, interviews were conducted with stakeholders in order to assess its sensitivity to the agribusiness sector in Mozambique, expectations for future graduates of the ESNEC (expected competencies), the possibility of establishing collaboration protocols with companies related to the sector, as well as to receive interns. It also aims to create a regional network of sustainable trade development in cooperation with other actors in the sector. In 2011, ESNEC was able to strengthen its institutional capacity through the training of more than 50 students, 30 teachers and 20 employees on various topics, and has also developed partnerships with other institutions such as BINDZO, ARPONE, Millennium Villages and IIAM. To enforce local and regional experiences, the NICHE project uses the local expertise of research institutes such as Institute of Agricultural Research of Mozambique (IIAM) and HICEP (Hydraulic Chókwe), agricultural enterprises in Chokwe, Xai-Xai and Maputo. However, greater involvement is expected in the coming years, since other service providers will be included through the Business Incubation Centre for the private sector. This project has already enabled the purchase of two vehicles, a minibus with 32 seats and another with eight seats. It has also allowed for the mobilization of bibliographic material for ESNEC courses valued at over 8.000 USD and the purchase of miscellaneous equipment such as computers, printers, cameras and office supplies. ESNEC also recently launched an internal competition for graduate students to submit business plans that, within the framework of cooperation with a bank, may be financed.

These projects contribute to the collaboration of diverse entities, namely: FUNDEC (skills development fund) (a public programme funded by the World Bank), National Institute for Training and Employment, the National Institute of Tourism, the Centre for Academic Development and the Institute of Languages.

As reported in 17, a focus group and interviews suggested the lack of qualified teachers in business and entrepreneurship subjects. To overcome this difficulty, ESNEC has established cooperative relationships with several other national and international academic institutions, especially with Portuguese-speaking countries, for the development of teacher skills, namely the School of Hospitality and Tourism Inhambane. (Mozambique), the Polytechnic Institute of Gaza (Mozambique), the Pedagogical University (Mozambique), the University of Saint-Thomas-Gaza (Mozambique), the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil), the University of Goiás (Brazil), the University of Aveiro (Portugal), the University of Beira Interior (Portugal) and the University Van Hall Larenstein (Netherlands). As a result of these cooperative networks, 20 teachers attended or are attending Masters courses and three are attending doctoral programmes in entrepreneurship or management. Twelve of these teachers have already attained a Masters degree and only two failed to complete their studies. Only 11 teachers of the institution did not receive further training or qualifications.

According to the Director of ESNEC (manager of cooperation networks), “cooperation includes help or mutual collaboration between two or more parties without profit interests or other monetary benefits... help may be based on agreements between the parties and networks are seen as “connections between different institutions to exchange relations of mutual information for use with available resources" (extract from interview). This statement emphasis the non-profit aspect of cooperation found in the content of the cooperation agreements that the school has established. Networks were established in order to exchange information and knowledge and to potentiate the available resources of the total network. In this sense, the networks are used not to create an immediate profit or market advantage, but to enable the mobility of resources for the specific purpose of improving entrepreneurship education competencies (cooperation in other universities), as well as to promote business knowledge dissemination and innovation (in the case of other collaborative projects).