"As governments from El Salvador to Kenya to India enact strict measures to halt the spread of the coronavirus, what can development organizations do to help micro and small businesses survive? Drawing from TechnoServe’s past experience working with entrepreneurs in times of crisis, as well as early learnings from the response to the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve put together this quick guide of ideas for supporting these enterprises."

"These interactive story dashboards provide information on the lending activities to agricultural SMEs and producer organizations by the Council on Smallholder Agricultural Finance (CSAF). CSAF consists of 13 private lenders that come together on a pre-competitive basis to share learning and develop industry standards to promote the healthy growth of the financial market serving small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs), including associations of smallholder farmers, in the agriculture sector."

"This publication identifies synergies between the DCED Standard for Results Measurement (the Standard) and the Global Impact Investing Network's IRIS+ system, which builds on the IRIS metrics catalogue and the Navigating Impact Project...The DCED Standard for Results Measurement (Standard) is a framework that helps organisations and programmes manage for impact...The IRIS+ system helps investors measure the social, environmental and financial performance of an investment and IRIS+ combines impact investing's most widely used impact performance metrics with research, evidence, and practical implementation guidance into a single comprehensive system."

"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."

"Research on impact investing is often conducted from the perspective of the investor, failing to account for the perspective of the impact entrepreneur on the ground. In particular, little primary research has concentrated on those who applied for impact investment funding but were turned down.This report details the ways in which local impact entrepreneurs have experienced the impact investing process, including the expectations of and communications with investors."

"Can television be used to teach and foster entrepreneurship among youth in developing countries? We report from a randomized control field experiment of an edutainment show on entrepreneurship broadcasted over almost three months on national television in Tanzania. The field experiment involved more than 2,000 secondary school students, where the treatment group was incentivized to watch the edutainment show. We find some suggestive evidence of the edutainment show making the viewers more interested in entrepreneurship and business, particularly among females. However, our main finding is a negative effect: the edutainment show discouraged investment in schooling without convincingly replacing it with some other valuable activity. Administrative data show a strong negative treatment effect on school performance, and long-term survey data show that fewer treated students continue schooling, but we do not find much evidence of the edutainment show causing an increase in business ownership. The fact that an edutainment show for entrepreneurship caused the students to invest less in education carries a general lesson to the field experimental literature by showing the importance of taking a broad view of possible implications of a field intervention."

"Tech start-ups are an effective mechanism to both create local technology and absorb foreign technology. The objective of this report is to provide a better understanding of the status of Beirut's start-up ecosystem and provide policy recommendations for policy makers and other stakeholders who are interested in supporting the growth and sustainability of the ecosystem. The report is based on an in-depth survey of startups and supportive stakeholders of the ecosystem. The findings point out to an early-to middle stage start-up ecosystem that has passed its nascent growth phase but is still far from maturity. Skills, supportive infrastructure, finance pipeline, and community and networks are examined and gaps are identified. Policy recommendations to tackle these gaps are presented based on international practices."

"This note explains how two tools - the DCED Standard for Results Measurement (the Standard) and the Impact Management Project's impact dimensions can be used to develop impact management systems. Each tool originated in different communities - the Standard in international development community, specifically related private sector development, and the Impact Management Project for investors and with input from a wide range of organisations. Both communities seek to learn and share experiences with others to continually improve impact. The DCED Standard for Results Measurement (Standard) is a comprehensive practical framework to manage for impact."

"The purpose of this study is to explore how do the characteristics of technology business incubators (TBIs), their chief executive officers, selection process and incubation process influence their research and development (R&D) contributions to the national economy.

These research questions are probed based on primary data gathered from 65 TBIs located in Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad, 3 of the leading start-up hubs of India comprising 9 accelerators, 31 incubators and 25 co-working spaces. Stepwise (backward elimination) regression method has been applied for six regression models for the analysis of research objectives."

"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."