"This handbook provides investors, businesses and private sector development practitioners with an overview of tools and methods for effective and appropriately tailored data collection for impact measurement and management. It builds on the recognition that the methods of larger, independent impact evaluations of, for example, government-funded programmes rarely lend themselves well to a private sector context. In reviewing select private sector-relevant tools and methods, it draws out how such tools can deliver impact insights while often feeding valuable business intelligence back into companies."

"This report summarizes the results of a survey that the Fate Foundation in partnership with Budgit Nigeria designed. It was disseminated to better understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Nigerian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with the goal of engaging relevant stakeholders within the entrepreneurship ecosystem to solutions and interventions to support Nigerian MSMEs during and post COVID-19. The survey was targeted at micro, small and medium businesses across the 36 states in Nigeria including the FCT. This report also provides in-depth recommendations for government, enterprise support organizations, private and development sector stakeholders on policy and program design as well as implementation approaches."

"This study evaluates the impact of business-development-support programs (credit, training, and a combination of both) on the performance of micro- and small enterprises (MSEs) in Ethiopia. Using 2015 Ethiopian urban survey data and employing endogenous-switching regressions for multiple treatments, we document a positive and significant effect of credit, training, and a combination of training and credit on MSEs. Our results highlight the heterogeneity in treatment effects between women- and men-owned MSEs: women-owned businesses do not benefit from access to treatments. Our results suggest that improving the performance of MSEs requires fine-tuned interventions that meet the specific needs of men and women who own small businesses rather than one-size-fits-all programs."

"Impact Investing: A Framework for Policy Design and Analysis represents a framework for thinking about the role government policy can play in creating an enabling environment for impact investing. The report answers the question, "How can policymakers, investors, and civil society better develop and analyze impact investing policies?"

This report presents three tools in order to lay the groundwork for future research: a model for locating the role of government in impact investing markets; a set of criteria that offer a practical starting point for the design and evaluation of policy; and sixteen case studies that provide detailed insight into a range of policies around the world."

"In recent years, investment in the various facets of Morocco's entrepreneurship ecosystem has become the focus of both the public and private sectors. The foundation has been developed, and all the structures necessary for nurturing not only entrepreneurship, but specifically climate entrepreneurship, have reached a 'start-up' stage. Nonetheless, the overall support environment requires more targeted intervention, in particular, favorable policies, resources, and a resilient entrepreneurial-minded culture to inspire future growth.

This report takes a mixed-methods approach to unpacking the climate entrepreneurship sector of the Moroccan economy, and is based on four forms of data collection and analysis undertaken from August-November 2016. By using different data sources, the team was able to triangulate the data and gain higher validity and consistency for the findings and recommendations."

"Imazon, a Brazilian nonprofit promoting sustainable development of the Amazon, exemplifies how social ventures can stay small to achieve large impact. This case study is relevant for any social enterprise working to have outsized impact by collaborating with partners to change systems. It is also relevant for any enterprise using data to create incentives for change."

"Impact assessment is a key component of managing an impact investment portfolio, and many investors today are building methodologies that bring value
beyond simply reporting outcomes.

For many investors, the impact goal is the common thread across a portfolio of various sector, geography and instrument types and this diversification can make choosing an impact assessment methodology challenging. As such, the process for developing a methodology is often an iterative one, refined with experience and data over time.

To help inform that iterative process, this research presents sixty-eight case studies from twenty-one leading impact investors that share best practice and
debated viewpoints on impact assessment along the investment process."

"Impact due diligence creates value for a broad range of stakeholders across the impact investing ecosystem, including impact investors, investees and the field at large. Key benefits include fostering internal alignment around intended impacts and priorities, deepening understanding of investees’ activities, supporting the construction of more positively impactful portfolios, improving investor and investees’ ability to communicate impact, strengthening relationships between investees and investors, and increasing firms’ ability to attract additional capital. In combination, the benefits of widespread adoption of impact due diligence should attract additional capital to the field and thereby foster the formation of more inclusive and sustainable financial markets."Impact Due Diligence: Emerging Best Practices" is the first of two reports intended to elevate the practice of impact due diligence."

"This evaluation assesses the impact of International Finance Corporation's (IFC's) Business License Simplification Project in the municipality of Lima, Peru. It reviews two previous evaluations sponsored by IFC and adds new evidence. Under the project, IFC's Foreign Investment Advisory Services (FIAS) worked with the municipality of Lima to reform the administrative process for obtaining a business license in Cercado de Lima, one of 44 districts that comprise metropolitan Lima. According to the municipality, 64 percent of the businesses in this district lacked a business license in 2005, and most of them were microenterprises. The present evaluation conducted an independent review of previous studies, collected additional data, verified the previous findings, and placed the findings in the context of related studies and evaluations. The goal was to take stock of the results, collect and use other evidence, and draw lessons for future IFC and World Bank operations."

"The objective of the study was to rigorously evaluate SME programs in four Latin American countries Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru to gain insights into whether SME programs work, which programs perform better than others, and why. This report should be of interest to country governments, policymakers with responsibilities for SMEs, local researchers and the private sector in the region, as well as World Bank staff and bilateral donors."