"This issue brief, part of a series published by ANDE in 2019, is designed to create a common knowledge base from which the Small and Growing Business (SGB) sector can work in the hopes of advancing towards selected development goals. SGBs will have to confront climate and environmental changes such as extreme weather and rapidly depleting natural resources as they affect their customers, operations, and supply chains. In light of these changes, this issue brief lays out the major environmental action topics and strategies for the SGB sector."

"The world's poorest people lack capital and skills and toil for others in occupations that others shun. Using a large-scale and long-term randomized control trial in Bangladesh this paper demonstrates that sizable transfers of assets and skills enable the poorest women to shift out of agricultural labor and into running small businesses. This shift, which persists and strengthens after assistance is withdrawn, leads to a 38% increase in earnings. Inculcating basic entrepreneurship, where severely disadvantaged women take on occupations which were the preserve of non-poor women, is shown to be a powerful means of transforming the economic lives of the poor."

"The report will address a number of specific steps that asset owners, asset managers, banks and other players, such as consultants and advisors should consider taking towards reversing climate change. These vary between institutions, but consistent themes include: developing investment beliefs, strengthening governance and risk management, working with clients to develop investment strategies, engaging with other financial institutions and nonfinancial companies. Above all, it is vital for financial institutions to understand that addressing stranding risks and other financial risks and opportunities of climate change is not a one-off process. It needs to become a permanent part of everyday decision-making."

"Business training is a widely used development tool, yet little is known about its impact. We study the effects of such a business training program held in Central America. To deal with endogenous selection into the training program, we use a regression discontinuity design, exploiting the fact that a fixed number of applicants are taken into the training program based on a pre-training score. Business training significantly increases the probability that an applicant to the workshop starts a business or expands an existing business. Results also suggest gender heterogeneity as well as the presence of financial constraints."

"This article examines the performance of a poverty alleviation policy in Thailand known as the Small and Micro Community Enterprises (SMCEs) programme. It investigates provincial determinants affecting the establishments of the SMCEs and assesses the effects of the programme on household income and out-migration by using panel data analysis and propensity score matching model. The research findings indicated that such enterprises have spread widely. Average household expenditure, the rate of poverty, and agricultural output were significant predictors of SMCE establishments. However, the research did not find any concrete evidence to support the claim that this policy helped reduce poverty or out-migration."

"While private sector engagement has long been a part of the global development lexicon, it is taking on new meaning today. Multinational and large national corporations actively shaped the SDGs and are contributing to global development in new and exciting ways. Meanwhile, social enterprises are becoming a critical part of the development ecosystem with their innovative approaches to global development challenges and new market-based solutions.

This special Devex report sheds a light on the relationship between social entrepreneurs and donors, and offers recommendations on what can be done to further strengthen those relationships."

"Do business accelerators add value? If so, how? We investigate these questions by focusing on Start-Up Chile, a government-backed ecosystem accelerator. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that entrepreneurship-schooling services of accelerators can significantly increase new venture performance by improving the entrepreneurial capital of participants. We speculate about the existence of four performance-enhancing mechanisms: greater social clout, the provision of an accountability structure that induces entrepreneurs to articulate and reflect about specific strategic tasks, an increase in self-efficacy, and know-how about building a start-up. We find no support for causal effects of basic services of cash and co-working space."

"Working on myriad cases of inclusive business projects over the past five years, we have gathered deep insights to be able to create and test a robust tool that works in the context of Bangladesh. The goal of the publication is to inspire social ventures adequately serve the bottom of the pyramid by leveraging this robust framework, which allows for a detailed list of factors ensuring viability, sustainability and scalability.

Focus has invariably shifted towards building sustainable models where we work not in isolation, but hand in hand with entrepreneurs, investors and organizations to explore new markets, discover more customers, and, in the process, transform lives of the underserved 2.7 billion. The solution lies in bringing them as an integral part of the market economy, create employment and convert them into consumers; not keep them in fringes of the informal economy."

"This report describes the landscape of business incubators and accelerators in the UK, exploring the scale and distribution, both geographically and sectorally."

"Since the last decade, the revolution in information technologies and liberalisation of trade regimes have created enormous opportunities for knowledge-based businesses as well as challenges for planners to create the one billion new jobs now needed the world over. The business incubation centre (BIC) helps tackle the obstacles faced by entrepreneurs and facilitates the venture creation process. While numbers are increasing - to around 3,500 worldwide including over 1,500 in the developing countries - their performance and sustainability are being questioned. The determinants of success in the Olympiad of venture creation can be expressed as five interlinked rings: public policy that stimulates entrepreneurial businesses and provides the business infrastructure; private sector partnerships for mentoring and marketing; knowledge base of learning and research; professional networking, national and global; and community involvement to promote entrepreneurism and cultural change. This paper outlines the distinguishing characteristics of incubators in selected developing countries. Based on recent experiences, good practices and the lessons (to be) learned are drawn. Case examples from China, Brazil and other developing countries indicate the variety of approaches."