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The report by the Enrich in Africa Center (EiA-C) emphasizes the significance of funding for fostering innovation ecosystems in Africa and addresses the trends in funding activities from 2020 to 2023. It examines grant funding data from nine major funders, alongside insights from interviews with key stakeholders. The analysis encompasses both the broader innovation funding ecosystem and specific support for ecosystem activities and organizations. By providing data and intelligence, the report aims to empower both funders and recipients to build sustainable and impactful innovation ecosystems in Africa, highlighting EiA-C's role in facilitating collaboration and knowledge exchange among stakeholders.

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"'Bridging the Divide: Women, Technology and Business Success,' in partnership with Intuit, highlights the key issues facing women entrepreneurs and outlines our calls to action for tackling them. The comprehensive report draws on responses from over 1,100 women across 81 countries. Identifying women’s common challenges and opportunities, the report casts a particular spotlight on the broader influence and potential of technology, such as AI, for women’s businesses, and resulting gendered social and economic outcomes."

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This guide is intended as an explanatory memorandum surveying the current legal landscape and market standards in South Africa concerning impact investing as well as the current viable impact investment options. This guide will be useful to, amongst others, South African debt and equity investors, grant-makers, foreign investors, incubator/accelerator portfolio managers, small and medium enterprises and social enterprises. The guide examines the laws and policies governing impact investing in South Africa, as well as different types and sources of financing that can be accessed for impact investment, and introduces a term sheet and “dos and don’ts” in carrying out negotiations and drafting term sheets.

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South Africa faces significant economic challenges, with youth disproportionately affected by high unemployment rates and limited economic participation. Townships, home to a significant portion of the unemployed population, are now focal points for addressing youth entrepreneurship as a solution. However, sparse data on township youth entrepreneurial activity hinders effective support strategies. This research indicates that proximity issues, such as isolation and lack of access to information, are key barriers for both youth entrepreneurs and business development support providers. Current support efforts often lack relevance and fail to target high-growth potential businesses. To improve outcomes, there's a need to shift focus towards reaching more youth entrepreneurs and tailoring interventions to their needs.

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South African politicians frequently refer to entrepreneurship as a potential solution to the economy’s significant unemployment problem. In reality, many entrepreneurs need to come from townships. Numerous reports address challenges faced by South African entrepreneurs. What distinguishes this report from extant studies is that this report features the voices of entrepreneurs and entrepreneur support organisations (ESO) to vividly portray township entrepreneurs’ challenges through in-depth interviews. This report also aims to elucidate the factors that contributed to the success of exemplary township entrepreneurs despite existing challenges and other strategies that ESOs can employ to guide more entrepreneurs to emulate these success stories.

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"There is growing evidence that the growth of small and growing businesses (SGBs) can be spurred by business development services (BDS). But how BDS is provided is critical to its success. Five fundamental considerations, acronymized as SCALE, have emerged that drive effectiveness. This report shows that even quite simple changes of approach can yield significant benefits to entrepreneurial growth. Together with an accompanying toolkit, it offers both BDS providers and funders guidance on how to implement dimensions of SCALE, proven to increase effectiveness, and as a result, boost SGBs revenues and job creation."

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Since its founding in 2009, the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) has tracked the state of the small and growing business (SGB) sector globally through its bi-annual State of the Sector reports.  One of the most dynamic markets for small business growth is South Africa. The South African entrepreneurial ecosystem requires innovative solutions to increase the available finance, improve access to markets, reduce bureaucratic burdens, and strengthen the capacity of small businesses and start-ups. This report examines the state of the SGB sector in South Africa as of 2023 by assessing the amount and type of financial support available to enterprises, the type of capacity development offered, and trends in the policy landscape that affect the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The report concludes by highlighting the activity of ANDE and its member

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India needs a significant capital injection to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target by 2030 and deal with climate change. Impact investing, catalysing philanthropic and commercial capital, offers promise in addressing critical social challenges. Initiatives like the Social Stock Exchange (SSE) and regulatory amendments aim to increase and broaden the pooled funds available to social enterprises and help them scale. Given this context, ANDE South Asia produced this explainer in collaboration with TrustLaw to provide focused guidance on how local and foreign impact investors can leverage the SSE to make investments in social enterprises in India.

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"Dismantling and shifting power structures is key for achieving meaningful social impact. For far too long, funders have had significant control over social impact organizations: what they focus on, how they allocate resources, and how they measure their own success. This control contributes to ongoing inequity and impedes progress. This report seeks to contribute to those solutions by beginning to address two essential questions: Who has power to define success?, and, Who should have power to define success? Guided by this frame of reference, we conducted a review of existing literature, a series of 22 interviews, and a survey of 409 nonprofit leaders, social innovators, and philanthropic funders to understand how philanthropy and social innovators measure success. We focused on the challenges faced specifically by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) leaders. Across these three methods, we sought to understand four key questions: 1. Who has power to define vision, mission, and metrics? 2. What metrics are collected and how are they used? 3. What effect do metrics have on BIPOC leaders? 4. How can we create more equitable funding streams?"

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"The report delves into micro and small women entrepreneurs’ credit journey and explores demand and supply-side factors. The study shares insights on credit requirements, experiences, challenges, and credit success determinants for individual and collective women-led enterprises. This report also identifies five key personas of female borrowers. It shares the supply-side experiences of bankers and other organizations who directly or indirectly lend to women entrepreneurs. It shares some novel methods and good practices supply-side stakeholders implement to mitigate and distribute credit risk. Ultimately, it provides key recommendations to enhance access to credit for women entrepreneurs."

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