"Recent years have seen the emergence of a new institutional form in the entrepreneurial ecosystem: the seed accelerator. These fixed-term, cohort-based “boot camps” for start-ups offer educational and mentorship programs for start-up founders, exposing them to a wide variety of mentors, including former entrepreneurs, venture capitalists (VCs), angel investors, and corporate executives, and culminate in a public pitch event, or “demo day,” during which the graduating cohort of start-up companies pitch their businesses to a large group of potential investors. In practice, accelerator programs are a combination of previously distinct services or functions that were each individually costly for an entrepreneur to find and obtain. The accelerator approach has been widely adopted by private groups, public and government efforts, and by corporations. While proliferation of accelerators is clearly evident, with worldwide estimates of 3000+ programs in existence, research on the role and efficacy of these programs has been limited. In this article, I provide an introduction to the accelerator model and summarize recent evidence on its effects on the regional entrepreneurial environment."

"To gain understanding of the state of entrepreneurship in Africa, Omidyar Network launched the Accelerating Entrepreneurship in Africa Initiative in 2012. To execute this multiphase research project, we partnered with Monitor Deloitte South Africa (formerly Monitor Group). We set out together to identify the challenges facing African entrepreneurs and to pinpoint the most trenchant barriers inhibiting high-impact entrepreneurship...This article presents the findings of the entrepreneur survey, the outcomes of the workshops in Accra, and the conclusions of the third and final phase of the initiative: the recommended actions needed to accelerate entrepreneurship on the continent. Self finance and family loans are the main sources of funding."

"With growing interest in the confluence between effective entrepreneurship and genuine economic development, more and more accelerator programs are working to find, select and support promising entrepreneurs, especially those working in emerging markets. As these efforts accumulate, it is critical that we learn from them, so that future programs are better able to support promising emerging-market entrepreneurs.

This report focuses on an entrepreneur-support program run by TechnoServe in four Central American countries. In 2012, TechnoServe established the "Impulsa Tu Empresa" program to provide small and growing businesses (SGBs) in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua with the training, advice, market connections and access to capital they need to develop and implement promising business plans."

"What type of local businesses make up the Tunisian private sector? What are the characteristics and needs of local businesses? What is the financial and non-financial offer available to serve the needs of the different types of local enterprises? Get a better understanding of the Tunisian entrepreneurial and financial ecosystem and get acquainted with the opportunities to close the gap for missing middle entrepreneurs locally."

"This report integrates primary surveys, opinion leader and practitioner interviews, as well as experiences and observations of dozens of business leaders, social entrepreneurs, global Millennials, academics and other experts, all of whom were generous with their time and resources. We combined this with secondary desk research, and together with our analysis, offer a compelling narrative about the future of social entrepreneurship around the world."

"USAID's Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship (PACE) initiative aims to catalyze private sector investment into early-stage enterprises and help entrepreneurs bridge the pioneer gap - thus unlocking the potential of thousands of promising enterprises around the world. Working in partnership with more than 40 incubators, accelerators, and seed-stage impact investors, USAID creates public-private partnerships dedicated to testing ways to help entrepreneurs overcome barriers to growth. These partnerships are expected to leverage $145 million1 in combined public and private investments over their lifetime."

"Private equity firms play a key role in creating an enabling environment for local business development, and supports their growth objectives by implementing best practice ESG policies in portfolio companies. This survey builds on AVCA's inaugural Sustainability Study, released in 2016. In this edition, we quantify how many jobs have been created from a selection of PE-backed companies in Africa between 2009 to 2016, and evaluate the extent of ESG integration in the private equity investment process."

"The 2020 Annual Impact Investor Survey is the 10th edition of the GIIN's flagship report, which provides the most comprehensive overview of the impact investing market. This edition captures data from 294 of the world's leading impact investors-the most Annual Survey respondents ever-who collectively manage USD 404 billion of impact investing assets, representing an important subset of the USD 715 billion global impact investing market.

The report looks at respondents' investment activity during 2019 and their plans for 2020, market developments over the past decade, and challenges facing the market going forward. Respondents also shared insights on how COVID-19 might affect their activities."

"A youth-oriented approach involves asking practical questions to develop tailored services for youth in the agribusiness sector. 2SCALE has been experimenting with various options to support young producers and entrepreneurs. Making agriculture interesting to youth requires making it attractive and remunerative by having access to land, finance and technologies in order to modernize. Besides production another alternative for youth inclusion was explored: specialized service delivery to value chain actors. This paper provides examples of how 2SCALE tackled youth inclusion in its partnerships."

"This case study reviewed social enterprises operating in the agriculture and health sectors in Kenya by conducting a desk-based literature review, interviews and a workshop with social enterprises and support organisations in Nairobi, which is currently seen as a hub of social enterprise activity in Africa. The case study considers how the lack of a widely-accepted social enterprise definition influences activity in Kenya, identifies niches within which agriculture and health sector social enterprises are operating and summarises some key findings from discussions with key informants."