"The DCED Standard is a practical framework for private sector development programmes to monitor progress towards their objectives. It comprises seven elements, listed in the box to the right, which are the minimum required for a credible results measurement process. By adopting these elements, programme managers can understand what is working and why, and use monitoring information to improve the effectiveness of their work."
"This study highlights the importance of strengthening social entrepreneurship to support both economic growth and individual prosperity in Indonesia. The mission of social entrepreneurship is to make solicing social issues a part of business. By involving the private sector in solving social and economic issues, social entrepreneurship has great potential to improve Indonesians' livelihoods in a lasting way."
"The Business Value of Impact Measurement highlights ways in which impact investors and investees use impact measurement practices to inform investment and management decisions to drive business value. The report focuses on the connection between measuring the social and environmental performance of impact investments, and the application of these data to generate business value for investors and investees."
"This research is unique as it is one of few studies that looks at women entrepreneurs from a regional perspective, to assess similarities and differences in how women entrepreneurs are coping with financial and non-financial barriers to growth in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda respectively. The study also establishes how these women currently fund their businesses, explores attitudes to different types of financing to expand their enterprises and reveals the funding gaps and capacity building needs."
"How do established companies respond to the entry of hybrid social ventures in their industries? Hybrid social ventures-new companies that combine business and social missions-use sustainability-oriented strategies to compete with established companies for some of their most desirable customers and employees. Yet hybrid social ventures also benefit when established companies advance their own sustainability strategies. This unusual competitive dynamic creates opportunities for collaboration. This article presents a framework for established companies responding to hybrid social ventures based on analysis of eight established consumer-facing companies. Our findings suggest that the responses of established companies differ based on opportunities they perceive for sustainability-oriented value creation with their own customers and employees."
"As part of its Agribusiness Innovation Program (AIP), infoDev designed an agribusiness incubation training program. To-date, the Agribusiness Incubation Training has been provided to a total of 149 people from 25 countries, including countries from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. This report analyzes the effects of the delivery of this training. The agribusiness incubation training sessions took place as a one-day-training1 in the context of seven different events."
"This guide shows how large companies can collaborate with other actors to build business ecosystems that enable small and medium sized companies (SMEs) to thrive. Based on concrete examples, it establishes elements of “Market Building Collaboration” and points out an agenda for action for large companies, the public sector and SME support institutions."
"In this guide, we endorse management and governance systems as a key ingredient for a successful and stable business. We encourage SMEs to establish appropriate systems and to avoid the common 'one-man show' approach among them. We show them the relative ease of achieving such a positive development just by making a few changes in how they manage their businesses. To help them, we present best practices and benefits of proper management and governance systems, along with business case studies about their fellow SMEs that have successfully applied them."
"This collaboration between Yunus Social Business and Boston Consulting Group looks at how Venture Philanthropists (VPs) have a unique opportunity to shape the future of social business. The report outlines a methodology to help VPs maximize the social impact of their investments at two levels. First, to understand and optimize the fund's impact on the social business to build stronger and more resilient companies, and second, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how the social businesses can optimize services and products to deliver better outcomes for beneficiaries."
"In March 2015, the ANDE South Africa chapter brought together just over 30 participants involved in the education entrepreneurship ecosystem including public and private funders, capacity development providers, academics and edupreneurs for a full-day roundtable discussion in Johannesburg to flesh out challenges and opportunities faced by edupreneurs in South Africa and to come up with collaborative actions to strengthen the ecosystem. The discussion, which covered five topics from Access to Finance to Infrastructure and Enabling Technologies, focused on direct instruction models (predominantly Low Fee Private Schools) and EdTech entrepreneurs."