"This report by the Tony Elumelu Foundation focuses on the challenges and opportunities facing young agricultural entrepreneurs. It contains a comprehensive analysis of Africa's entrepreneurial ecosystem and discusses challenges and opportunities that African start-ups face along the agricultural value chain."

"Over the past several decades, U.S. venture capital (VC) firms have focused their attention and investment dollars in specialized regional hubs where high-tech entrepreneurship tends to flourish. As a result, "main street" businesses such as retail stores, consumer services, and other non-tech businesses typically find it incredibly difficult to secure equity funding. Yet, in recent years, crowdfunding (CF) has become a viable new source of funding for entrepreneurs. Using a longitudinal assessment of VC and CF at the national, regional, and sector levels in the USA, we demonstrate how the emergence of CF has unlocked new growth opportunities for main street entrepreneurs, particularly those located in underserviced funding regions. Likewise, we expose how CF augments national and regional funding patterns by re-allocating funding to industries that VCs typically do not fund. Lastly, we discuss the practical and theoretical implications of what appears to be a shifting venture funding regime, and shed light on CF's potential role in enhancing the resurgence of main street entrepreneurship across the USA."

"Over the course of twelve months in 2018, we worked on the ground with 15 entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs), interviewed more than 80 ESOs, and engaged more than 1,000 stakeholders, from entrepreneurs to investors to government leaders. We learned that the entrepreneur support sector in Africa has an opportunity for better communication and collaboration. ESOs are growing businesses - much like the startups they serve. We need to focus on resourcing and strengthening existing hubs, rather than creating new ones."

"Unlocking the Potential of Frontier Finance assesses key features of frontier finance impact investments and finds significant opportunity for making an impact in this sector. For impact investment in frontier finance to reach its full potential, investors require more clarity around the common features and performance of such transactions and strategies to address the challenges they face in the market. This research seeks to answer these questions by analyzing a database of 40 frontier finance transactions, 10 interviews, and a workshop discussion with 39 investors and other ecosystem players. Specifically, the report includes an overview of the frontier finance investment landscape, presents five in-depth case studies featuring frontier investment vehicles and transactions, and provides recommendations to build the market and overcome common challenges hindering the flow of additional capital into frontier markets."

"This toolbox is the result of a collaborative process between Practical Action and the Institute of Socio-Economic Research of the Bolivian Catholic University "San Pablo" (IISEC-UCB). The complementarity of visions and action areas reflects in an innovative proposal that aims to respond to a frequent and growing need by non governmental organizations: to measure the impact of gender-focused actions promoted by development projects, in this case productive."

"This paper presents an aligned yet customizable framework of indicators for measuring farm-level sustainability in smallholder agricultural supply chains. These indicators are proposed primarily in the context of performance measurement, but can also be useful for more in-depth impact evaluation studies. The proposal is not for one single common set of indicators, but rather for using the same indicators when asking the same types of questions at the farm and household level. The authors argue that using the same indicators when asking the same questions in smallholder supply chains will increase comparability across data collection efforts and ensure that the community is building on the common understanding of how to gather credible, affordable, and useful data that facilitates learning."

"Este estudo explora como o setor de SGB pode contribuir para o alcance do ODS 8 e como as organizações de apoio às SGBs podem ajudá-las a contribuírem com esse mesmo objetivo."

"Solar Sister, a social enterprise operating in Tanzania, Uganda, and Nigeria, is dedicated to eradicating energy poverty through the economic empowerment of women. In addition to economically empowering its women entrepreneurs, the business model of Solar Sister also cultivates sales networks built on trust in last-mile distribution methods. While Solar Sister has previously conducted research regarding its many entrepreneurs, it has lacked information on its end customers. In 2016 a research team from Santa Clara University’s Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship undertook survey research with Solar Sister to examine the effects of solar lantern use on users’ health, education, time allocation, household savings, income generation, and increased agency. The research team conducted a 53-question survey in more than 20 villages across five regions in Tanzania, with research assistants providing English-Swahili translation. The data and stories presented here are intended to help illuminate the potential of solar lanterns to improve livelihoods in rural Tanzania and beyond."

"This joint article by IFC and McKinsey finds that the unmet needs for credit by all emerging-market micro, small, and medium enterprises is significant, despite the importance of this sector to economic development and job creation. The article, Two Trillion and Counting, offers the first comprehensive assessment of the global credit gap, ranging from $2.1 trillion to $2.5 trillion, and some implications for public and private sector actors as they seek to close that gap."

"ANDE, the Center for Development Alternatives, Enterprise Uganda, and Koltai & Company released the Phase I findings of ANDE's Uganda Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Initiative on November 28. The Phase I report maps the entrepreneurial ecosystems of Kampala and Gulu—two key regions for Ugandan economic growth. It then outlines a strategic path forward for promoting entrepreneurship in these regions, recommending specific actions to overcome ecosystem constraints. The second phase of the initiative will use these findings to design and implement a multi-stakeholder, multi-million-euro program to develop Ugandan entrepreneurship, beginning in 2019. Read the full report."