Youth entrepreneurship space in Tanzania is limited

Economics

Lost entrepreneurial era
In order to understand the current entrepreneurship space in Tanzania, it is very important to look at the country’s history. There are two major epochs in the development of entrepreneurship in Tanzania. The first one is the time period between 1967 and the mid-1980s.
This was an epoch that characterises Tanzania’s socialist past. The country embraced state controlled economy.
There was no room for a market economy due to the dominance of Marxist/Leninist-oriented social, political and most importantly economic thinking.
Private sector development in general and free enterprises in particular had no room to flourish. One experienced anti-entrepreneurial educational, political, legal, policy and regulatory environment in this epoch.
It is an epoch where attempting to create free private enterprise was more or less equivalent to being an enemy of the state.
This was arguably the dark age and lost years in the context of entrepreneurial development in Tanzania.

Barriers in accessing finance
There is a long litany when it comes to reciting barriers that stand between the available finance on one hand and youth on the other.
These barriers take the form of requirements that most financial institutions put forward for those wanting to access their available funds.
Requirements for accessing funds from a financier include having formal business with business licence and business address; having good, convincing and bankable business plan; having traditional collateral; good business records including sales, sales revenues and profit; indicating reputable referees; ability to pay loan processing fees; paying high interest and, at times, rough treatment for delayed repayment or default.
All these and many other factors are barriers to youth to access finance. They may be understandable from financial institutions business perspectives, but they remain necessary evils that can be solved.