For years, entrepreneurship support has followed a familiar formula. Young people are invited into conference rooms, presented with business concepts, given notebooks full of ideas and encouraged to go out and build successful enterprises.
Across Africa, governments, development partners, and civil society organisations continue to invest heavily in youth entrepreneurship as a response to unemployment and economic inclusion. Yet an important question continues to linger: if entrepreneurship programmes are becoming more common, why do so many promising business ideas struggle to grow into sustainable enterprises?
The International Labour Organization (ILO) notes that while entrepreneurship is increasingly recognised as a pathway to livelihoods for young people, many aspiring entrepreneurs continue to face barriers such as limited access to business development services, mentorship, markets, finance and practical entrepreneurial skills.
Perhaps the challenge is not that young people lack ambition. Perhaps it is that we have been supporting entrepreneurship in ways that do not fully reflect the realities of building and sustaining a business. This is what made Zambia's first Entrepreneurship Train so significant.
Implemented by the Zambian Governance Foundation (ZGF) under the Youth-Led Entreprises programme and supported by Comundo’s youth skills building intervention and Comic Relief through the Shifting the Power Programme, the pilot initiative transformed a railway journey from Lusaka to Livingstone into a moving classroom. Fifty young entrepreneurs spent four days learning, questioning, refining business ideas, receiving mentorship and building relationships while travelling together across Zambia.
While the train eventually reached Livingstone, perhaps its greatest destination was a new understanding of what effective entrepreneurship support can look like.
Entrepreneurship is not a spectator sport
Traditional training often places participants in the role of listeners. Entrepreneurship demands something different. It requires people to make decisions with imperfect information, adapt when circumstances change, defend ideas under pressure, receive criticism and learn continuously.
The train unintentionally recreated many of these realities.
Participants were not simply attending workshops. They were constantly exchanging ideas, refining business models, questioning assumptions and learning from one another long after the formal sessions had ended. Some of the most valuable lessons happened between scheduled activities, in conversations over meals, while watching Zambia's landscapes unfold through train windows, or during informal debates about business challenges.
Learning became continuous rather than confined to a timetable.
Before entrepreneurs need funding, they need clarity
Conversations about entrepreneurship frequently return to one issue: access to finance.
Funding is undoubtedly important. However, the Zambia Entrepreneurship Train highlighted another reality. Many participants arrived with strong ideas but struggled to clearly explain the problem they were solving, who their customers were, or why someone should choose their product over another.
Through one-on-one venture coaching and repeated opportunities to refine their business pitches, participants began identifying gaps in their thinking before seeking investment. This reinforces an important lesson for entrepreneurship support programmes: capital can accelerate a good business, but it rarely fixes an unclear one.
Sometimes the greatest investment an entrepreneur can receive is thoughtful coaching.
Networks are an overlooked form of capital
Entrepreneurship is often portrayed as an individual pursuit. In reality, businesses rarely succeed in isolation. The Zambia Entrepreneurship Train deliberately brought together young entrepreneurs, experienced mentors, government representatives, financial institutions, civil society organisations and the private sector within one shared learning environment.
These interactions created something that cannot easily be replicated through online training or one-day workshops: relationships.
Participants left with more than improved business plans. They left with mentors, collaborators, potential partners, and peers who understood the challenges of building an enterprise. In many ways, these networks may prove to be just as valuable as any financial investment.
Exposure changes ambition
For several participants, the journey itself was a first. Some were travelling by train for the first time. Others were visiting Livingstone for the first time. Exposure matters because entrepreneurs often innovate within the boundaries of what they have seen.
Travelling across the country, engaging with different people, and experiencing Zambia's tourism landscape expanded participants' understanding of what entrepreneurship could look like.
Innovation does not always begin with a new idea. Sometimes it begins with a new perspective.
Innovation is not only about business ideas
Perhaps the Entrepreneurship Train's greatest innovation was not found in the business concepts participants presented. It was found in the learning model itself.
By transforming travel into a space for learning, reflection, mentorship and collaboration, the initiative challenged the assumption that entrepreneurship education must happen inside four walls. It demonstrated that learning environments shape learning outcomes.
When participants are immersed in experiences rather than passive instruction, they become active problem solvers instead of passive recipients of information.
The bigger lesson
The Zambia Entrepreneurship Train was designed to strengthen youth entrepreneurship. It certainly achieved that.
But perhaps its most enduring contribution lies elsewhere. It challenged us to rethink what entrepreneurship support should look like. If Zambia is serious about nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs, the conversation cannot end with access to finance or business registration. It must also consider how entrepreneurs learn, who they learn from and the environments in which that learning takes place.
Because building successful businesses is not only about teaching people how to write business plans. It is about creating experiences that change the way people think.
If you would like to contribute to this discussion, please do so via info@zgf.org.zm
