Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, has emerged as the 64th most entrepreneurial nation in the world and 5th in Africa behind South Africa, Rwanda, Morocco and Kenya.
The World’s Most Entrepreneurial Countries otherwise known as the “Entrepreneurship Index” evaluates more than 100 countries using various factors such as competitiveness, infrastructure, labour skill, openness for business and access to capital as shown below. Individual countries were thereafter scored between 1-100.
The ranking which was conducted by CEOWORLD Magazine was designed to evaluate the efforts of individual countries to business owners.
Overall, it is not surprising that the United States top the list with a score of 42.88 while Germany followed closely as the runner-up with a score of 41.05.
Other countries that featured on the top 10 list include the United Kingdom ranked 3rd with a score of 35.8, Isreal ranked 4th with a score of 34.25, the United Arab Emirates occupies 5th position with a score of 31.01 and Poland stood at the 6th position with 29.75.
Spain came 7th with a score of 29.01, while India and France were ranked 9th and 10th with a score of 25.47 and 25.34, respectively.
Investors King learnt that the list was heavily dominated by European countries. No African country in the top 47.
At the continental level, South Africa led the African continent with 15.12 and ranked 48th on the world stage. Rwanda was ranked 2nd in Africa with a score of 14.93 but came 50th in the world.
Morroco trailed Rwanda with a 14.32 score, ranking 3rd in Africa and 61st globally. Kenya scored 14.2 to become 4th in Africa and 63rd in the world, while Nigeria scored 14.11 to ranked 5th in Africa and 64th in the world.
It is undeniable that while some countries in Africa have significantly improved on the ease of doing business in the last few years, the entire continent still has a very long way to go. Poverty and increased unemployment could be tamed if African countries do more to support entrepreneurs who are the highest employer of labour and the drivers of the economy. See the full list below.