"Uganda's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Initiative (UEEI) Phase II aimed to address key gaps and opportunities in the entrepreneurial ecosystems of Kampala and Gulu, Uganda. The initiative was designed to work collectively towards addressing interrelated constraints such as limited access to financing, mentorship, and network connections, which were found to be limiting entrepreneurship in Uganda. While progress has been made, challenges such as bureaucratic red tape and a lack of appropriate financial products for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) still exist. The UEEI Phase II serves as a valuable learning opportunity for practitioners and policymakers working to cultivate a thriving entrepreneurship ecosystem in emerging markets."

"Women entrepreneurs are critical to a thriving and inclusive economy, and yet they face numerous challenges in growing their businesses. These challenges are compounded for women climate entrepreneurs (WCEs), given limited research that assesses the issues or presents actionable recommendations to the wider ecosystem. This knowledge product identifies challenges and opportunities for WCEs with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa - specifcally, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa and Malawi."

"We study the medium-term impacts of the Skills for Effective Entrepreneurship Development (SEED) program, an innovative in-residence 3-week mini-MBA program for high school students modeled after western business school curricula and adapted to the Ugandan context. The program featured two separate treatments: the hard-skills MBA features a mix of approximately 75% hard skills and 25% soft skills; the soft skills curriculum has the reverse mix. Using data on 4400 youth from a nationally representative sample in a 3-arm field experiment in Uganda, the 3.5 year follow-up demonstrated that training was effective in improving both hard and soft skills, but only soft skills were directly linked to improvements in self-efficacy, persuasion, and negotiation. The skill upgrade was rewarded in substantially higher earnings; 32.1% and 29.8% increases in earnings for those who attended hard- and soft-training, respectively, most of which, was generated through self-employment. Furthermore, youth in both groups were more likely to start enterprises and more successful in ensuring their businesses' survival. The program led to significantly larger profits (24.2% and 27.2% for hard- and soft- treatment arms respectively) and larger business capital investments (38.4% and 32.6% for SEED hard and SEED soft, respectively). Both SEED curricula were very cost-effective; two months worth of the extra earnings caused by the training alone would exceed the cost of the program. These benefits abstract from the job- and business-creation benefits of the program, which were substantial: relative to the control group, SEED entrepreneurs created 985 additional jobs and 550 new businesses."

"ANDE, the Center for Development Alternatives, Enterprise Uganda, and Koltai & Company released the Phase I findings of ANDE's Uganda Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Initiative on November 28. The Phase I report maps the entrepreneurial ecosystems of Kampala and Gulu—two key regions for Ugandan economic growth. It then outlines a strategic path forward for promoting entrepreneurship in these regions, recommending specific actions to overcome ecosystem constraints. The second phase of the initiative will use these findings to design and implement a multi-stakeholder, multi-million-euro program to develop Ugandan entrepreneurship, beginning in 2019. Read the full report."

"The Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI), a traditional incubator run by the government, has made a significant impact by locating value-added processing systems from its Kampala headquarters into farmer communities. While the model lacks the necessary innovation development, UIRI offers SME clients in these regions the opportunity to expand their personal income and their existing businesses through local market development and value-added food processing. At the same time, however, UIRI’straditional incubator has been challenged to graduate incubatees who do not have the financial resources to stand on their own."

"The purpose of the information presented in this report is to inventory different organizations in Uganda that could help build local capacity and catalyze and accelerate SME development and growth. The report includes a contextual overview of Uganda, which helps to shed light on some of the challenges and opportunities for SME development and poverty alleviation. This information puts into perspective some of the key sectors that have been the focus of enterprise development activities. The report also includes an overview of key donor programs, as they can often stimulate SME-related activities and also provide a sense of where large interventions in the SME landscape are occurring."

"Entrepreneurship is an engine for economic development worldwide (Kelley, Singer, & Herrington 2016). For developing economies, the importance of entrepreneurship is associated with increased productivity and reduction in the rising unemployment rates, particularly among the youths. Consequently, several models and support programmes have been designed to facilitate successful entrepreneurial activities amongst youth. The article discusses the business acceleration model of the Global Business Labs (GBL) which is replicated in Botswana, Namibia and Uganda based on a Swedish model, between 2012 and 2015 but failed in Mozambique and Zambia. Using a multiple case study method, this article presents the results of a cross-country case analysis of the GBL programme with a view to understand the emergence of a business accelerator. Despite replication of the programme in respect of concepts, materials and operational systems, the cases reveal variations in operational experiences and acceleration performance across the five countries. Using the emergence theory, the article highlights these differences. The major contribution of the study to theory, in determining how business accelerators come into being, includes the duality of intentions and exchange between key stakeholders and the resource burst as a triggering mechanism in developing countries. The study further informs development of a model for successful business acceleration launch and subsequent performance for developing economies."

"In this guide, we endorse management and governance systems as a key ingredient for a successful and stable business. We encourage SMEs to establish appropriate systems and to avoid the common 'one-man show' approach among them. We show them the relative ease of achieving such a positive development just by making a few changes in how they manage their businesses. To help them, we present best practices and benefits of proper management and governance systems, along with business case studies about their fellow SMEs that have successfully applied them."

"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 research is unique as it is one of few studies that looks at women entrepreneurs from a regional perspective, to assess similarities and differences in how women entrepreneurs are coping with financial and non-financial barriers to growth in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda respectively. The study also establishes how these women currently fund their businesses, explores attitudes to different types of financing to expand their enterprises and reveals the funding gaps and capacity building needs."