"This report explores evidence and insights from five case studies that have made significant recent progress in addressing the challenge of insuring poor smallholder farmers and pastoralists in the developing world. Evidence from these case studies can inform the ongoing debate about the viability of scaling up index-based insurance for vulnerable smallholder farmers in the developing world. The rapid progress observed in recent years suggests that index insurance has the potential to benefit smallholder farmers at a meaningful scale, and suggests the need to reassess arguments that lack of demand and practical implementation challenges prevent index-based insurance from being a useful tool to reduce rural poverty."

"Our research shows that successful scale-ups in the region generate on average 3.4 times more revenues and 8 times more jobs than other SMEs.
Several countries have recognized the economic value of scale-ups and are developing tailored policies and programs for them. Similar initiatives in the MENA region could have a significant impact. By studying the importance of scale-ups in the context of their local markets, we identified priorities for policymakers to improve their local scale-ups ecosystems across four growth pillars: business fundamentals, business propellers, demand creators, and country readiness. Within these pillars, we have recognized several priority areas, including access to financing, talent, foreign markets, large customers, and regulatory relief. Success also depends on mobilizing an ecosystem of private and public players to orchestrate growth initiatives."

"This report outlines the need to provide capital to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. It shows the impact of this capital on economic development, and the role for International Finance Institutions (IFIs) in the provision of this capital. Finally, it outlines recommendations for additional interventions and further research."

"The purpose of this paper is to examine how entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and the use of management accounting practices (MAPs) in decision making affects the profitability of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and also to analyze the extent to which EO and the use of MAPs affects profitability differently in growing and non-growing SMEs.

EO and MAPs have a positive effect on profitability in non-growing SMEs, but the combined effect of EO and MAPs has no additional effect. However, for growing SMEs, high usage of MAPs in decision making is a prerequisite for EO to influence profitability. This study is the first to use the resource-based view to examine the relationship between two dimensions of resource organization and SME profitability. EO is used as a proxy for how resources are organized in order to identify opportunities, and MAPs are used as a proxy for how efficiently resources are organized."

"Global sustainable development challenges such as climate change or poverty cannot be addressed without Responsible Finance - finance that integrates social, environmental and governance concerns into the lending and investment decision making of financial institutions.

This study sets out a series of major Responsible Finance trends and identifies a number of key challenges and barriers for its further integration. The study is aimed at those interested in learning about the status quo, trends and drivers influencing business practices through lending and investment decisions in the financial sector internationally and in India."

"We analysed the growth impact delivered by a high-growth entrepreneurship policy initiative over a six-year period. Using an eight-year panel that started two years before the initiative was launched and propensity score matching to control selection bias, we found that the initiative had more than doubled the growth rates of treated firms. The initiative had delivered a strong impact also on value-for-money basis. In addition to producing the first robust evidence on the growth impact delivered by a high-growth entrepreneurship initiative, we contribute to public sponsorship theory with the notion of capacity-boosting activities to complement previously discussed buffering and bridging activities."

"Small businesses are often believed to serve as engines for innovation, employment and social mobility, due to their flexibility in responding to new opportunities and their potential for rapid growth. In developing countries, SMEs make up a particularly large part of the economy, yet data suggests that very few small enterprises in developing countries grow into larger businesses. Researchers conducted a qualitative study of a consulting program in the Philippines designed to help SMEs expand, investigating the obstacles that consultants identified as constraints to firm growth. They found that there is no "one-size-fits-all" approach to business training - most firms have a complex, interconnected set of challenges."

"This paper tests whether demand shocks affect firm dynamics. Ferraz, Finan and Szerman (2015) examine whether firms that win government procurment contracts grow more compared to firms that compete for these contracts but do not win. They assemble a comprehensive data set combining matched employer-employee data for the universe of formal firms in Brazil with the universe of federal government procurement contracts over the period of 2004 to 2010. Exploiting a quasi-experimental design, they find that winning at least one contract in a given quarter increases firm growth by 2.2 percentage points over that quarter, with 93% of the new hires coming from either unemployment or the informal sector. These effects also persist well beyond the length of the contracts. Part of this persistence comes from firms participating and winning more future auctions, as well as penetrating other markets."

"Women play a key role in the economies of sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where women make up the majority of those who are entrepreneurs. However, a range of impediments render women's businesses less productive and having fewer employees than those owned by men. This new report seeks to focus attention on the challenges that Africa's women entrepreneurs face and identify practical solutions. The report draws on new, high-quality, household and firm level data to present the clearest evidence to date about the barriers to growth and profitability faced by women entrepreneurs. The report offers policy makers evidence-based guidance on designing programs to target multiple obstacles and improve the performance of women entrepreneurs."

"Gender lens investing (GLI) - investing with the goal of making financial returns and a positive impact on women - is on the rise. Stories of new funds and promising investments are shared widely, signaling the growth of this trend. We wanted to know exactly how big the gender lens investing ecosystem is and how fast it is growing. So, in October of 2017 we researched and published Project Sage: a Landscape of Structured Private Equity, Venture Capital, and Private Debt Vehicles with a Gender Lens. Recently, we conducted a second landscape analysis, Project Sage 2.0, to assess the current state of the field and to understand how things had evolved over one year. This report presents the results of our survey and analysis of private equity, debt, and venture capital funds that operate with a gender lens. The landscape captures the field through July 2018, when our data collection for this report ended."