"Asia is facing simultaneously huge growth potential and increasing inequalities, with often weak national solutions to the social issues at hand. Social purpose organisations (SPOs) – which includes but are not limited to non-profit organisations, charities and social enterprises - are seen to solve these issues sustainably. Social incubation is seen as a tool to help SPOs grow and potentially build a pipeline for social investors. Yet, how does social incubation in Asia work? The insights presented here are the first insights from surveying 15 social incubators in Indonesia, Thailand, India, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore which have existed for at least two years."

"Social enterprises that not only deliver financial but also social and environmental returns for those at the 'bottom of the pyramid' (BOP) and society as a whole are being promoted as an integral solution towards sustainable development and inclusive growth. This study sets out a market assessment on the incubators and impact investors that act as enablers of the social enterprise ecosystem in the India. It doing so it clarifies the services these different organizations provide, their business models and sector wise, geographic and service related gaps, as well as the challenges they face from the individual perspectives of system enablers. It draws on a series of stakeholder consultations including an online survey, and desk research of a sample of 16 social enterprise incubators and 33 impact investors active in the country."

"Through our analyzes of over 30 models of smallholder service delivery, in 16 different counties, we have been able to identify best practices and key drivers for farmer resilience and business sustainability. Here, in this report we share with you our findings. Read on to better understand the key leverage points for creating systemic improvements in delivery systems. The data we’ve gathered, and patterns observed should enable farmers, service providers and investors to make smarter decisions for sustainable growth. Couple this with innovative blended finance, to de-risk investments, and we will be able to unlock billions of dollars in smallholder agriculture to take these models to scale."

"This issue brief is an addendum to the global COVID-19 issue brief published by ANDE. It summarizes the initial evidence emerging from the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem, including challenges, risks, and needs that have arisen from the community, to help guide the response. The research for this brief was developed as part of the Global Inclusive Growth Partnership, a joint collaboration between the Aspen Institute and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth."

"The authors conduct a randomized experiment among women in urban Sri Lanka to measure the impact of the most commonly used business training course in developing countries, the Start-and-Improve Your Business program. They work with two representative groups of women: a random sample of women operating subsistence enterprises and a random sample of women who are out of the labor force but interested in starting a business. They track the impacts of two treatments -- training only and training plus a cash grant -- over two years with four follow-up surveys and find that the short and medium-term impacts differ."

"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 paper seeks to inform the reader with: An insider’s perspective of on-the-ground challenges faced in balancing the right mix of investments impact on missions of social enterprises [and] Recommendations that could help guide the growing social investment arena on how to support the development of sustainable social enterprises."

"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."

"Market Systems Development (MSD) is an approach to poverty reduction that aims to create long-lasting and large-scale change by stimulating more inclusive growth. To achieve a systemic change vision, market systems programmes often partner with the private sector to introduce new or improved business practices, products and services. Understanding the mechanics of these business models is at the heart of programme success. This paper presents a framework for assessing the efficacy of business models. To help future practice be grounded in reality, we have included detailed business model cases studies from market systems programmes in Afghanistan, Zambia, Kosovo and Nigeria. The paper ends by extracting five key lessons for implementers to improve the way in which they engage with the private sector in building 'win-win' models."

"Many Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) technologies fail to achieve their full potential impact due to low levels of adoption by smallholder farmers and difficulties in scaling CSA. This paper presents how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can act as change agents for the uptake of CSA technologies where their business models may be seen as adoption and scaling mechanisms. Drawing upon our fieldwork in Punjab (India) during which over 100 respondents have been interviewed, critical issues and enabling factors for the business model of two types of SMEs, i.e. farmer cooperatives and individual service providers of climate smart technologies have been identified. Enabling factors supporting adoption are driven by scientific and practical evidence of CSA technologies, good partnership between SMEs and research institutes, good customer relationships and effective channels through farmers' field trials. Critical issues consist of distortive government subsidies on energy and the lack of market intelligence affecting the profitability of the business model. Scaling is enhanced through market intelligence and a favouring regulatory landscape. However, difficult socio-economic circumstances and distortive government subsidies limit the role of SMEs business model as mechanism for scaling."