By Comm. VPM Nyasulu
aka @shikulu-LUBUTO
Over the past five articles, I have argued that Zambia’s next Government must deliberately construct an ecosystem in which indigenous Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (i-MSMEs) can genuinely thrive.
First, Government must adopt a National Indigenous Enterprise Development Strategy.
Second, it must fundamentally reform access to finance.
Third, Government procurement must become the country’s largest market development tool for indigenous businesses.
Fourth, Zambia must deliberately localise and deepen indigenous value chains.
Fifth, Government must continuously reform the regulatory environment so that it rewards productive enterprise rather than bureaucratic compliance.
But there is a sixth indispensable action without which all the foregoing reforms will remain incomplete:
Zambia must build an entrepreneurial, technical and productive skills revolution.
We cannot build an industrial economy with an education system that primarily prepares young people to look for jobs.
We must deliberately prepare them to create, produce, innovate and employ others.
The next Government must therefore make enterprise education, technical skills, financial literacy, digital competence, innovation and productivity integral components of Zambia’s human-capital development strategy.
Entrepreneurship should not begin after someone has failed to find employment.
It should begin in the classroom.
From primary school onwards, learners should gradually be exposed to problem-solving, creativity, financial literacy, practical production, technology, teamwork and enterprise. At secondary and tertiary levels, these competencies should become increasingly specialised and connected to real economic opportunities.
Our universities must also change.
A university should not only produce graduates seeking employment from Government and large corporations. It should increasingly produce entrepreneurs, researchers, engineers, technologists, innovators and professionals capable of commercialising knowledge.
Similarly, Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training (TEVET) institutions must become central engines of industrialisation.
Zambia needs welders, electricians, plumbers, mechanics, machinists, agronomists, food technologists, software developers, construction specialists, renewable-energy technicians and countless other skilled practitioners.
These are not second-class careers.
They are the human infrastructure of industrialisation.
The next Government should therefore establish much stronger partnerships between schools, universities, TEVET institutions, industries and indigenous MSMEs. Apprenticeships, internships, mentorships and work-integrated learning should become normal pathways into productive employment and enterprise ownership.
But skills alone are not enough.
Our entrepreneurs must also acquire the capability to manage and scale businesses.
Many enterprises fail not because their owners lack determination, but because they struggle with bookkeeping, costing, taxation, financial management, marketing, governance, quality control, digital systems, procurement procedures and strategic planning.
Government-supported enterprise development programmes should therefore move beyond motivational workshops.
Entrepreneurs need practical, continuous and measurable business-development support.
They need to know how to turn an idea into a product, a product into a business, a business into a company, and a company into a competitive enterprise.
Technology must be at the heart of this revolution.
The digital economy provides indigenous MSMEs with opportunities that previous generations could never have imagined. E-commerce, digital payments, cloud accounting, artificial intelligence, digital marketing and online marketplaces can allow even small Zambian businesses to reach customers far beyond their immediate communities.
The objective should therefore be to create a digitally capable indigenous enterprise class.
Most importantly, we must change our national attitude towards productive work.
A young Zambian who establishes a profitable farm, manufactures furniture, develops software, repairs machinery, processes food or builds a successful enterprise should be regarded as contributing to national development just as much as someone employed in a prestigious profession.
We must restore dignity to production.
We must celebrate the entrepreneur who creates ten jobs—not merely the person who obtains one.
This is particularly important for women and young people, who constitute enormous reservoirs of entrepreneurial potential. Their inclusion should not be treated merely as a social programme. It should be recognised as an economic imperative.
The sixth indispensable action is therefore about much more than education.
It is about building productive human capital.
Finance without capability can create indebtedness.
Markets without skills can create dependency.
Technology without human capacity can create technological dependence.
Regulatory reform without capable entrepreneurs leaves opportunities unused.
But when knowledge, skills, enterprise, finance, markets and enabling regulation work together, something transformative happens.
An economy begins to produce.
That is precisely what Zambia needs.
We do not merely need more educated citizens.
We need more productive citizens.
We do not merely need more certificates.
We need more competence.
We do not merely need more job seekers.
We need more job creators.
And we do not merely need more businesses.
We need more businesses capable of surviving, scaling, innovating and competing.
The next Government therefore has an historic opportunity to transform Zambia’s education and skills architecture into an engine of indigenous enterprise and industrialisation.
If we educate the mind, equip the hand, empower the entrepreneur and connect both to markets, Zambia’s greatest natural resource—its people—will finally begin to realise its full productive potential.
That is how i-MSMEs will thrive.
That is how industrialisation will become sustainable.
And that is how Zambia can move from an economy that largely consumes what others produce to one increasingly capable of producing what Zambia, Africa and the world consume.
