ANDE's Executive Director, Randall Kempner, participated in an agribusiness-focused event and pitch competition Ghana, where he identified access to talent or human resources as a major challenge facing small businesses. The Mobile Business Clinic, which is part of the Lundin Foudation in Accra, hosted the event, selected three winners at the end of the competition.

ANDE's Director of Strategic Development reflects on a week spent in Amsterdam with entrepreneurs from around the globe for the launch of VilCap Communities. She realizes that attracting capital may actually be the easy part, compares do developing talent alongside financial growth, and that understanding the effectiveness of accelerators may play a key role.

As traditional sources of capital show no signs of growth, as donors are making a push to work with more local organizations, and as impact investing and the role of entrepreneurship in development have gained more attention, INGOs are exploring their options. Adva Saldinger writes about how ANDE members are working to identify new ways to help out the missing middle.

Isaac Gross attended the ANDE Investment Manager Training (IMT) in Brazil in December 2015 and writes about his experience in Wall Street Oasis: "Impact investing is a growing industry and it is important to provide people with the resources they require. In order for the field to continue to advance, we need more programs like the MIINT and the ANDE Investment Manager Training to prepare the next generation of impact investors."

"In the same way that the aspiring runner starts by joining a running club, so should the aspiring entrepreneur tap into the existing ecosystem designed to support entrepreneurs," writes Zipho Sikhakhane in South Africa's Sunday Times. South Africa's Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Map, a detailed infographic our ANDE South Africa team created about the main finance, capacity development and ecosystem support gaps and opportunities, is featured in this article.

The best three-letter weapon against poverty is not spelled A-I-D but J-O-B,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winner Nicholas Kristof in his new book, A Path Appears. At this year's ANDE Annual Conference, Kristof and ANDE Executive Director Randall Kempner discussed aid, development, jobs, and how corporations can play an important role in addressing critical global development challenges.

This article, on a Brazilian site dedicated to innovation and education in Brazil, discusses a recent report that ANDE published with the support of SAP: "Education for the 22nd Century." It discusses the major findings and recommendations, and focuses on the Brazilian context.

"We live in a world characterized by gender inequality. Throughout the globe, women continue to struggle for equal wages, access to capital and financing, training, supply chain inclusion and more. This state of affairs is unfair, unethical and unwise. Reams of research show that investing in women is not only the right thing to do, it’s the economically smart thing to do—for women and men." Randall Kempner makes the case for why it's past time for the world to invest more in women.

"A successful entrepreneurship ecosystem can help hundreds of social enterprises thrive," write Kate McElligott and Randall Kempner. This article lays out six things to keep in mind when implementing an entrepreneurial ecosystem initiative in order to improve the environment in which social entrepreneurs work.

When employers support enterprises that improve education outcomes, they deliver success for both their own business and for young people. In this blog for the Shared Value Initiative, Stephanie Buck and Nish Pangali of SAP discuss how corporations can support education-focused entrepreneurs, and why it matters.