Entrepreneurship training in developing countries

There are more than a billion people who live in poverty (Collier, 2007; Reynolds, 2012). Twenty-one percent of the population in developing countries (1.22 billion people) can only spend $1.25 or below a day in the year 2010 (Olinto, Beegle, Sobrado, and Uematsu, 2013). In addition to poverty, a major problem for developing countries is the high rate of unemployment (The International Labor Office [ILO], 2013). Two thirds of the young population in developing countries was unemployed or worked in irregular employment in the year 2012 (ILO, 2013; UNDESA, 2013). What will aggravate the situation is that many more young people will enter the future job market. In least developed countries 40% of the population was younger than 15 years in 2012, and 20% were aged between 15 and 24 years (UNDESA, 2013). Consequently, many governmental and non-governmental bodies argue that solving the problem of unemployment and fostering employment creation in developing countries is of high importance (ILO, 2013; UNDESA, 2013). A possible approach to address the issue of unemployment is entrepreneurship since research shows that entrepreneurship supports employment creation (Acs, Desai, and Hessels, 2008; Gries and Naudé, 2010; Mead and Liedholm, 1998; Naudé, 2010, 2012; Naudé, Gries, Wood, and Meintjies, 2008). This implies that through promoting entrepreneurship it is possible to contribute to employment creation.