Indigenization in Zimbabwe

This research essay is an assessment of the Zimbabwe National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Policy (NIEEP) against its objectives of supporting and developing youth entrepreneurs in Zimbabwe. The purpose of this study was to establish the extent to which the NIEEP was achieving its objectives of enhancing and creating employment opportunities for youth entrepreneurs to actively participate in the economy. The study found that the NIEEP managed to establish the youth fund to finance youth projects, reserve shares in some sectors of the economy for youth businesses and reserved company shares for purchase by youths. The main challenges include inaccessibility of the youth fund by the youths due to restrictive collateral requirements, abuse of power and corruption to access funding, fraudulent activities by applicants, lack of training in entrepreneurial skills among the youth applicants, inadequacy of the fund as well as a non-conducive economic environment for entrepreneurship.