"As part of a series of ecosystem maps, with the support of the Citi Foundation, our West Africa Regional Chapter released a snapshot providing insight into the Abuja entrepreneurial ecosystems. This snapshot was produced through a review of existing literature, a series of surveys and interviews, as well as stakeholder meetings."

"As part of a series of ecosystem maps, with the support of the Citi Foundation, our West Africa Regional Chapter recently released a snapshot providing insight into the Lagos entrepreneurial ecosystem. This snapshot was produced through a review of existing literature, a series of surveys and interviews, as well as stakeholder meetings."

"In 2018, the ANDE South Africa team completed an in-depth snapshot of programs supporting entrepreneurs in Gauteng. This snapshot builds on previous efforts to identify support for entrepreneurs in South Africa."

"As part of a series of ecosystem maps, with the support of the Citi Foundation, our West Africa Regional Chapter recently released a snapshot providing insight into the Lagos entrepreneurial ecosystem. This snapshot was produced through a review of existing literature, a series of surveys and interviews, as well as stakeholder meetings."

"A survey of the support available for entrepreneurs in South Africa was undertaken by the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) South Africa chapter in 2015. This infographic below highlights the updated 2017 version of the key fi ndings with interactive buttons to provide a more detailed overview of the support available."

"Through the efforts of the irene|see network, the researchers have contributed to both theoretical and empirical knowledge around social enterprise and social economic empowerment that is pluralistic in disciplines, as well as methodology. The multidisciplinary studies presented in this volume contribute to the effort to understand the diversity of social enterprise experiences at national and local levels, as well as the way third and private sector enterprises and organizations are embedded in their respective societies. This volume aims to presents some of the findings, results, and recommendations of the researchn conducted through the irene|see network."

"In this brief, we use data from the Entrepreneurship Acceleration Research Initiative in order to respond to the following question by Steve Cumming of the MasterCard Foundation about Youth Entrepreneurship: At The MasterCard Foundation, we have a portfolio of youth entrepreneurship projects that we support in Sub Saharan Africa. We're always looking for data to better understand the space and to inform our programming. I'm wondering if you could share any data by ages 18-24 and 25-30, and by African country or region if possible. Do you see anything interesting under these parameters?"

"Special attention has been given to untie the constraints of Micro and Small Enterprises in Ethiopia for they are important vehicles to address the challenges of unemployment, economic growth and equity in the country. The government is implementing different support service programs, in the forms of financial and business development, in different parts of the country. This study is aimed at evaluating economic impact of MSEs support service programs on enterprise sales, employment and capital asset formation in Dire Dawa Administration, Ethiopia. Propensity Score Matching is employed to estimate the impact of support service program. The result revealed that the program resulted in average increment of monthly sales by 28%, employee level by 42%, and capital asset formation by 60%. It is, therefore, indispensable to strengthen and expand the support service program to non participant enterprises by giving special attention to the major problems that participant enterprises are currently facing."

"Grants for agricultural innovation are common but grant funds specifically targeted to smallholder farmers remain relatively rare. Nevertheless, they are receiving increasing recognition as a promising venue for agricultural innovation. They stimulate smallholders to experiment with improved practices, to become proactive and to engage with research and extension providers. The systematic review covered three modalities of disbursing these grants to smallholder farmers and their organisations: vouchers, competitive grants and farmer-led innovation support funds. The synthesis covers, among others, innovation grant systems in Malawi (Agricultural Input Subsidy Programme), Latin America (several Challenge Funds for Farmer Groups), Uganda (National Agricultural Advisory Services ), and Colombia (Local Agricultural Research Committees - CIAL)."

"Current women's economic empowerment interventions are not enough to overcome all obstacles facing female entrepreneurs. The emerging evidence from psychology and experimental economics on agency; mindset, and leadership show that for successful interventions to be transformative, they need to move beyond basic access to financial and human capital and also tackle central psychological, social, and skills constraints on women entrepreneurs.

Emerging evidence from recent studies on different capital-based, training-based, and gender based interventions, using randomized control trials, present promising interventions to support women entrepreneurs. An experimental study in Uganda found that Providing financial capital (i.e., subsidized microcredit coupled with Start and Improve Your Business training module), while effective for men, does not have any impact on female owned enterprise profits. Similarly, a randomized control trial on Tanzania's Business Women Connect program found that while the mobile savings program substantially increased savings, it did not have an effect on female-owned enterprise profits or sales even when combined with hard business skills, such as business management, basic profitability concepts, and record-keeping. Both studies, however, show that loans paired with business trainings as well as improved access to mobile savings accounts paired with business trainings had a positive impact on male-owned microenterprise profits or sales. Thus, a successful women's economic empowerment intervention needs more than only access to financial capital and hard business skills."