"Aid providers often describe small firms as 'job creators'. But what types of jobs do they create? Drawing on enterprise survey data for nine African countries and panel data for Ethiopia we find that small and large formal sector firms create similar numbers of net jobs. Small firms, however, have much higher turnover of employment and pay persistently lower wages. To create more 'good' jobs aid should target the constraints to the growth of firms of all sizes. Improving the 'investment climate' and new programs to increase firms' capabilities - through, for example, management training - offer greater prospects for employment creation."

"Impact investment is a strategy to align the power of private markets to the social and environmental development needs of society at-large. From 2012-13, the Rockefeller Foundation, through its Impact Investing initiative, funded research in five Sub-Saharan African countries with the aim of understanding the barriers for impact investing across Africa, as well as recommending national policies to encourage the growth of the industry. This report synthesises the findings of that work, presents three frameworks, and examines the potential of impact investing as a 'strategy of choice' for African policymakers."

"From launching a fund to exiting investments, this handbook provides an introduction to equity investment throughout Africa. The handbook presents a panorama of SGB investment in Africa, introduces equity investment methodology, and suggests a roadmap for launching an investment vehicle targeting African SGBs."

"This report from the CSIS Project on Prosperity and Development outlines a new tool for policymakers to encourage private-sector development in developing nations. Specifically, it argues that in fragile states there is an intermediation gap between sources of capital and entrepreneurs seeking investment. This gap prevents investment by raising transaction costs and exacerbating information asymmetry. Cusack and Tilleard present a case study of this gap as observed in their work in South Sudan. Then they propose a model of investment facilitation that bridges the intermediation gap. The model is based on donor funding of a neutral nongovernment facilitator to identify attractive investment opportunities, link them to capital, and facilitate transactions."

"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."

"To contribute to the debate with such context-specific knowledge and insights, NWO-WOTRO Science for Global Development commissioned a synthesis study. This study explored how a selection of research projects funded by the Food & Business (F&B) Research programme have directly or indirectly addressed key opportunities and constraints of sustainable inclusive business initiatives. The synthesis included 13 interdisciplinary research projects, which shared the long-term objective of contributing to improved food and nutrition security of marginalised and vulnerable groups. Based on this study, this paper presents new insights into the different business processes and innovations of, particularly, small-scale producers and entrepreneurs in the agri-business sectors of countries across sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia."

"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."

"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 knowledge brief aims to provide an overview of the IMM landscape in Nigeria and draws lessons from organizations who have IMM experience in West Africa. The knowledge brief focuses on providing an understanding of how impact is defined by some organizations, what elements they take into consideration when designing an IMM strategy, why they measure impact, the upsides and downsides of standardization, challenges they face in measuring and managing impact, and how they utilize data to drive impact. The knowledge brief also shares the IMM journey of three organizations: Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation, LEAP Africa and MBC Africa, and provides recommendations on implementing IMM."

"This report summarizes the results of a survey that the Fate Foundation in partnership with Budgit Nigeria designed. It was disseminated to better understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Nigerian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with the goal of engaging relevant stakeholders within the entrepreneurship ecosystem to solutions and interventions to support Nigerian MSMEs during and post COVID-19. The survey was targeted at micro, small and medium businesses across the 36 states in Nigeria including the FCT. This report also provides in-depth recommendations for government, enterprise support organizations, private and development sector stakeholders on policy and program design as well as implementation approaches."