"This publication aims to provide insights into the why, how, and what of inclusive business to inspire companies that want to develop their own inclusive business model, and civil society and public partners facilitating include business in Africa. Hereto, the publication shares knowledge from both theory and practice and delves deeply into three inclusive business cases from East Africa: financial inclusion through mobile banking service M-Pesa in Kenya; Community Life Centres for inclusive healthcare in Kenya; and inclusive agribusiness and food security in Ethiopia. In addition, the publication presents insights from research on 2SCALE, an incubator programme that manages a portfolio of public-private partnerships. (PPPs) for inclusive business in agri-food sectors."

"The publication discusses the market potentials, constraints, and necessary policy instruments for an enabling environment for inclusive business. Included in the report are: a profile of inclusive business initiatives, the market size of the base of the pyramid, and an analysis of each inclusive business ecosystem in every Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economy. There is also a recommended a framework to guide future work on inclusive business under the APEC regional economic cooperation agenda."

"We seek to show how evidence-based teaching for management affects the success of firms by way of changing managers’ actions. We conducted a randomized controlled field intervention with a sample of 100 small business owners in Kampala, Uganda. The intervention increased personal initiative behavior and entrepreneurial success over a 12-month period after the intervention. An increase in personal initiative behavior was responsible for the increase of entrepreneurial success (full mediation). Thus, the training led to an entrepreneurial mind-set and to an active approach toward entrepreneurial tasks. This particular management training was successful at improving knowledge and intangible skills that translated into successful organisational medium- to long-run outcomes for small businesses."

"This study explores how the social entrepreneurship ecosystem can unite to develop an action plan on gender lens incubation and investing for enterprises focused on the low income market segment in India. It takes an international perspective with a geographical focus on India an emerging leader in innovation for the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) and is supported by examples of such innovative high impact, sustainable enterprises."

"The purpose of the paper is to find the relationship between education and training and performance of women entrepreneurs (WEs). The present study found that entrepreneurial education stimulates women to take up entrepreneurship as a career option."

"This paper evaluates the impact of the Chilean Supplier Development Program, aimed at improving and stabilizing the commercial linkages between small and medium-sized suppliers and their large firm customers, during the period 2003-2008. Applying propensity score matching and difference-in-differences, we find that both groups of firms benefited from the coordination efforts. The program increased sales, employment, and the sustainability of small and medium-sized suppliers. It also increased the sales of large firms and raised their ability of becoming exporters. We also find that the timing of the effect is different for suppliers and large firms. While the effect on suppliers appeared one year after the firms enrolled in the program, the effect on large firms took two years to appear."

"We are pleased to share with the impact community our review of 150 impact investing platforms, networks and organizations that promote, support or convene investors in the impact finance area. Prompted by our own experience as investors, technologists, and system designers, we were interested in better understanding prevailing business models and motivations for sharing (or hoarding!) data, innovations, and investors. Our analysis builds on ongoing work to design and develop an interoperable, global, modular, distributed, and democratic infrastructure for mobilizing data, innovations, and capital at the volume and velocity required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Our purpose, in addition to providing an overview of the platform landscape, is to identify opportunities for alignment of prospective partners, around the strategy, design and implementation for such global impact infrastructure; and explore scenarios for collective action."

"GAIN and partners, including the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Business Network (co-convened by the World Food Programme (WFP)), undertook a survey of food system SMEs in 17 countries in May 2020, aiming to assess the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated control measures on their businesses and their support needs."

"We study two interventions for underemployed youth across five Ethiopian sites: a $300 grant to spur self-employment, and a job offer to an industrial firm. Despite significant impacts on occupational choice, income, and health in the first year, after five years we see nearly complete convergence across all groups and outcomes. Shortrun increases in productivity and earnings from the grant dissipate as recipients exit their micro-enterprises. Adverse effects of factory work on health found after one year also appear to be temporary. These results suggest that one-time and one-dimensional interventions may struggle to overcome barriers to wage- or self-employment."

"Drawing on available academic literature and policy evaluation studies, the report aims to identify the impact of public support through equity instruments on firm performance, and puts forward main lessons on policy design and implementation. It employs a mixed- method approach based on evaluation synthesis (Edler at al. 2008)."