UNTAPPED ENTREPRENEURSHIP CHALLENGES: THE MISSING LINKAGES IN SUPPORTING THE GROWTH OF GRASSROOTS ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Investing at the grassroots level is an essential intervention to achieve the goals that the international and national communities have set in terms of sustainable development. However, substantial performance remains the concern of the many developing countries in establishing a strong strategy on education in supporting grassroots economies. The general objective of this paper is to engage in discussion on how the country's strategy is designed to meet the intended results in supporting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through entrepreneurship at the grassroots level. The specific objectives first will focus on critical analysis on the level of matching of the designed strategy and the implementation and secondly on the role of social innovations and the motivations of social entrepreneurs in supporting socioeconomic progress and employment creation. The paper outlined key issues from Malaysia and Zanzibar experiences using a qualitative approach. The findings indicate that in Zanzibar the grassroots entrepreneurs were dominated by weak education, mindset, and traditional experiences in transforming their practices using emerged innovation initiatives, there is also a weak government initiative on innovative measures and a lacks policy initiatives. While in Malaysia the grassroots entrepreneurs failed to use the existing opportunities of the STI initiative to transform themselves into global and regional opportunities. It is suggested that to realize the effective role of entrepreneurship in supporting SGD's goals in employment, quality life, and poverty reduction, there is a need for a paradigm shift to support entrepreneurship education which will support socio-economic development at all levels.