State of Social Enterprise Africa 2025

Overview of methodology This report presents the findings of primary data collection, academic articles, policy documents and other reports published between 2017 and 2025, existing datasets covering more than 10 countries in Africa and a market-sizing activity of nine additional countries. This is an abridged overview of the methodology, but for a detailed account please see the extended methodology in The State of Social Enterprise: Unlocking Inclusive Growth, Jobs and Development in Africa. The data collection serves as a pilot application of the principles and practices set out in Collecting Data on Social Enterprises: A Playbook for Practitioners, a collaborative initiative by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship’s Advisory Group on Social Enterprise Data.91 This was developed in response to recommendations from The State of Social Enterprise: A Review of Global Data,92 which highlighted the need to address gaps in the availability, quality and comparability of data on social enterprises. This Africa report builds on these by applying a standardized set of core survey questions that were further contextualized, with the guidance and input of a regional advisory group. The market sizing informed the findings on the size of the social enterprise landscape in Africa. Applying a desk-based methodology that applied an annual growth rate, using proxies such as economic and SME growth, to the identified base number of social enterprises in each country determined the market size in 2025. A limitation of this approach is the reliance on proxy growth rates, which do not fully reflect the unique dynamics of social enterprises or account for the full impact of external factors on market growth. Another limitation is the comparability of the survey against other data sources, as different data was available for different countries and different years. The survey was conducted via the Good Market platform93 to create a living dataset. This design allows social enterprises to be verified, discover opportunities and retain ownership of their information by updating their profiles. Country networks played an essential role in dissemination: they contacted enterprises by telephone, conducted surveys with enumerators and hosted in-person events, including in rural areas, to maximize accessibility and reach. In Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, the survey yielded 1,980 usable responses after data cleaning. The findings were further enriched by insights from 45 experts representing academia, business, government and civil society. These stakeholders were pivotal in this research and report and are credited in the Acknowledgments section. The State of Social Enterprise: Unlocking Inclusive Growth, Jobs and Development in Africa 55