"This paper is part of the Compendium of Evidence on the Effectiveness of Innovation Policy Intervention. This paper examines publicly supported policies for entrepreneurship development. Entrepreneurship policies are directed to encouraging socially and economically productive activities by individuals acting independently in business. Their principal objective is to increase a level of entrepreneurial activity which is considered to be below the social optimum. Policies may be implemented directly to address entrepreneurs' needs e.g. business advice programmes or through broadcast methods such as education policy. We have attempted to locate and focus on evaluations that reported on additionality / net effect or that use methods of causal inference to determine the effectiveness and impacts of policy. While policies and programmes for entrepreneurship can be simplistically modelled as a series of inputs beginning with cultural change followed by general and then more specific skill development, it is hard nevertheless to assess impact or trace causality because of the difficulty of defining discrete units of input, the presence of confounding factors and the length of time over which effects can build."

"A prioritized strategy for action that assists investors, stakeholders, and policy actors in directing their resources towards generating the greatest impact for entrepreneurs in South Africa."

"The purpose of the information presented in this report is to inventory different organizations in Kenya that could help build local capacity and catalyze and accelerate SME development and growth. The report includes a contextual overview of Kenya, 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."

"Tech start-ups are an effective mechanism to both create local technology and absorb foreign technology. The objective of this report is to provide a better understanding of the status of Beirut's start-up ecosystem and provide policy recommendations for policy makers and other stakeholders who are interested in supporting the growth and sustainability of the ecosystem. The report is based on an in-depth survey of startups and supportive stakeholders of the ecosystem. The findings point out to an early-to middle stage start-up ecosystem that has passed its nascent growth phase but is still far from maturity. Skills, supportive infrastructure, finance pipeline, and community and networks are examined and gaps are identified. Policy recommendations to tackle these gaps are presented based on international practices."

"The DCED Standard is a practical framework for private sector development programmes to monitor progress towards their objectives. It comprises seven elements, listed in the box to the right, which are the minimum required for a credible results measurement process. By adopting these elements, programme managers can understand what is working and why, and use monitoring information to improve the effectiveness of their work."

"This paper provides a review of the profiles of the subsistence entrepreneurs and their constraints, and the landscape of current entrepreneurship programs and the evidence on impacts, and discusses the potential role of public policies for the livelihoods of subsistence entrepreneurs. Worldwide over a half of workers are self-employed, but a significant fraction of these self-employed jobs are of low productivity subsistence entrepreneurs. The focus of the entrepreneurship programs to support these self-employed in poverty is to improve their livelihoods rather than promoting cutting-edge innovation and business growth. Evidence of successful programs is limited and program designs often seem ill suited to the needs and characteristics of these subsistence entrepreneurs. Given the market failures faced by subsistence entrepreneurs, interventions that complement safety net programs with well-targeted support to promote productive self-employment may hold some promise."

"Social enterprises address social and environmental problems through innovative business solutions that improve the lives of underserved communities. They are businesses which trade for a social purpose, re-invest surpluses into their social objective, and make themselves accountable for their actions, rather than simply maximising profits for owners and shareholders.

The survey finds that social enterprise is a growing and dynamic sector of the Indian economy that is creating jobs for disadvantaged groups, empowering women, and addressing social exclusion across the country. This study seeks to expand our knowledge of the Indian social enterprise sector and has taken into account the findings of previous researches on the subject."

"A survey of the support available for entrepreneurs in South Africa was undertaken by the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE), South Africa. The Infographic highlights the key findings while interactive buttons provide a more detailed overview of the support available."

"This report highlights the potential of small, micro and medium enterprises (SMME) in the process of moving towards a green economy in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It also describes challenges that SMME with inclusive business models face and provides policy recommendations on how to support them."

"This research aims to quantify the importance of a country's entrepreneurship level in terms of its competitiveness rates. Our hypothesis is that those countries entrepreneurship growth rates increase their competitiveness indicators and that this entrepreneurial improvement could be a key factor in reaching the next stage of development. Our results suggest that Latin American countries need to gain entrepreneurial dynamics and economic (and competitiveness) development by transforming their typical self-employment or low value-added new ventures for local markets into strong, innovative networked firms competing globally. Some management and policy implications are also discussed."