"This document presents ENERGIA’s four-year journey to create and upscale womencentric energy enterprises that sell safe, reliable and affordable energy solutions to low-income consumers in underserved areas. ENERGIA works with partner organizations in seven countries in an effort to develop and test new, disruptive business models and approaches that promote women as energy entrepreneurs. This document is a self-reflection, undertaken collectively by the WEE programme coordinator, the partner organizations and the ENERGIA International Secretariat. As a learning document, it seeks to analyse the various strategies with which we have worked in different contexts. It draws out common features of the most promising ones, as well as lessons from efforts that did not go so well, or even failed completely. Since documentation on women’s energy entrepreneurship is only beginning to emerge, wherever relevant, we have crosschecked our lessons with those from women’s entrepreneurship in other sectors."

"This paper provides a review of the profiles of the subsistence entrepreneurs and their constraints, and the landscape of current entrepreneurship programs and the evidence on impacts, and discusses the potential role of public policies for the livelihoods of subsistence entrepreneurs. Worldwide over a half of workers are self-employed, but a significant fraction of these self-employed jobs are of low productivity subsistence entrepreneurs. The focus of the entrepreneurship programs to support these self-employed in poverty is to improve their livelihoods rather than promoting cutting-edge innovation and business growth. Evidence of successful programs is limited and program designs often seem ill suited to the needs and characteristics of these subsistence entrepreneurs. Given the market failures faced by subsistence entrepreneurs, interventions that complement safety net programs with well-targeted support to promote productive self-employment may hold some promise."

"ANDE has been tracking the growth and impact of the small and growing business (SGB) sector in emerging market economies for our annual State of the Sector report since 2009. The analysis examines global trends in support for small and growing businesses through capacity development services, direct private investment, and donor funding, as well as specific trends by region. The latest report provides a retrospective summary of key developments and trends in the sector in 2019 and relevant insights based on initial data and emerging information on the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on those trends in 2020."

"The promotion of micro and small enterprises has been a centerpiece of the Ethiopian government's strategy to alleviate urban unemployment among the youth since 2004. Since this time, the government has adopted twin strategies of creating a business environment conducive to start and operate MSEs while at the same time actively triggering the establishment of new MSEs.

In this research, using a large dataset collected from 13 major cities in Ethiopia, we explore whether government-induced enterprises (cooperatives) differ from self-initiated enterprises (non-cooperatives) in various aspects of business productivity, business practices and performance."

"Identifying the determinants of entrepreneurship is an important research and policy goal, especially in emerging market economies where lack of capital and supporting infrastructure often impose stringent constraints on business growth. This paper studies the impact of a comprehensive business and financial literacy programme on firm outcomes of young entrepreneurs in an emerging post-conflict economy, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The authors conduct a randomised control trial and find that, while the training programme did not influence business survival, it significantly improved business practices, investments and loan terms for surviving businesses. Female-run businesses further exhibited some improvements in business performance and sales."

"Now in its second edition, the Social Investment Landscape in Asia serves as a resource for funders and resource providers to assess the opportunities and challenges for social investment in 14 markets in North, South and Southeast Asia. It is designed to be a guide for new social investors and intermediaries looking to enter the Asian market and existing actors exploring partnerships as well as cross-border or cross-sector opportunities. Each market report provides a holistic overview of the current and emerging trends in the social economy."

"This manual provides social entrepreneurs a comprehensive yet easy to use guidebook on how to develop successful relationships with social investors. The guidebook presents an overview of the social investment landscape, offers concrete approaches to finding and approaching the right investors for social enterprises, as well as the best practices for having a successful due diligence process and for negotiating a mutually beneficial long-term social investment arrangement."

"This web portal provides guidance on calculating social return on investment (SROI), principles, definitions, methodology, and other resources, including webinar recordings and calculators."

"Recent field experiments demonstrate that advice, mentorship, and feedback from randomly assigned peers improve entrepreneurial performance. These results raise a natural question: what is preventing entrepreneurs and managers from forming these peer connections themselves? We argue that entrepreneurs may be under-networked because they lack the necessary social skills- the ability to communicate effectively and interact collaboratively with new acquaintances-that allow them to match efficiently with knowledgeable peers. We use a field experiment in the context of a business training program to test if a short social skills training module improves who the participants choose to learn from within the program. We find that entrepreneurs who were exposed to the social skills training formed 50% more relationships with peers. These relationships exhibited more matching based on managerial skill and were more ethnically diverse. Finally, the training also substantially increased entrepreneurs' business performance. Our findings suggest that social skills help entrepreneurs build relationships that create value for both themselves and their peers."

"Social enterprises address social and environmental problems through innovative business solutions that improve the lives of underserved communities. They are businesses which trade for a social purpose, re-invest surpluses into their social objective, and make themselves accountable for their actions, rather than simply maximising profits for owners and shareholders.

The survey finds that social enterprise is a growing and dynamic sector of the Indian economy that is creating jobs for disadvantaged groups, empowering women, and addressing social exclusion across the country. This study seeks to expand our knowledge of the Indian social enterprise sector and has taken into account the findings of previous researches on the subject."