Development of Entrepreneurship in Mozambique: Challenges and Opportunities

Entrepreneurship has been assumed as a major contribution to the economic development of countries, through the creation of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that produce goods and services for domestic consumption and export, generating jobs and public revenues. For this reason, entrepreneurship has attracted the attention of many researchers in academia to find better solutions that improve the contribution to the economy of countries. This study aims to describe the challenges that entrepreneurs face in the development of their activities. For its realization, a questionnaire survey about entrepreneurship was used, and 3,875 answers were considered valid. For data analysis, it was used correlation analysis, factor analysis, and regressions, as a way to respond to the proposed objectives. Entrepreneurs in Mozambique face several challenges, including financing, training, market, and government policy. These challenges were influenced by demographic factors such as education level and area of education. This research contributes to highlighting the importance of training in entrepreneurship, as it allows the improvement of the business management capacity, and the improvement of the financial knowledge of managers of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, which positively impacts the economic growth of the country. Therefore, it is expected that this study will influence decision-makers to create policies favorable to the development of entrepreneurship and the promotion of training in business areas, to improve the skills of entrepreneurs in Mozambique. The study had as limitations the weak adherence to the completion of the surveys, as well as the imbalance between the regions (north, center, and south). Also, this study was limited by the small number of available studies conducted in developing countries that would allow a comparison of the realities. Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Perceptions; Challenges; Training and Capacity.