"There is growing evidence that the growth of small and growing businesses (SGBs) can be spurred by business development services (BDS). But how BDS is provided is critical to its success. Five fundamental considerations, acronymized as SCALE, have emerged that drive effectiveness. This report shows that even quite simple changes of approach can yield significant benefits to entrepreneurial growth. Together with an accompanying toolkit, it offers both BDS providers and funders guidance on how to implement dimensions of SCALE, proven to increase effectiveness, and as a result, boost SGBs revenues and job creation."

"This report offers a trend analysis of women’s entrepreneurship in 50 countries, five global regions and three national income levels. We focus on four key themes in the first half of the report, followed by a closer analysis of region- and country-specific patterns in the second half. The four themes are (1) gender differences in rates at various points in the entrepreneurial lifecycle, from intentions through to startup activity, new business, established business and business exit; (2) gender differences in COVID impacts, both positive and negative; (3) structural inequalities and women’s participation in high-potential startups; and (4) factors in the enabling environment that likely influence gender differences in entrepreneurial activity.

Our findings offer insights to a diverse audience of researchers, policymakers, educators and practitioners. Our goal is to highlight areas where women entrepreneurs have made significant progress, where the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their business outcomes, and where there are still gaps, challenges and opportunities that can be better addressed."

Entrepreneurs who lead innovative companies and spearhead transformative solutions are needed to address some of the world’s most pressing issues. Endeavor Insight offers in-depth research on innovation and entrepreneurship across agriculture, healthcare, and clean energy sectors, made possible with support from the Lemelson Foundation, and additional funding for agriculture-specific research by Small Foundation.

These studies evaluate the challenges and opportunities for founders creating positive impact in emerging markets, specifically sub-Saharan Africa and India. Based on data from more than 500 innovative companies and interviews with over 130 entrepreneurs, the research draws lessons from high-performing companies, identifies how they are addressing urgent needs, and analyzes the role of ecosystem actors such as support organizations in enabling their success.

"Swisscontact and Startup Heatmap Europe have joined forces to develop a self-serving toolkit that empowers startup hubs all around the world to measure the health of their ecosystems. The toolkit supports managers of startup programs, university incubators, research transfer organizations, ecosystem builders and policy makers to track the progress of their ecosystem build-up. End-users are empowered to use the toolkit to source data in their home ecosystems, enter them in an interactive dashboard and based on the outcomes, and identify recommended fields of action."

"Taking advantage of China’s 2017 free trade zone (FTZ) program introduced in 15 cities, we adopt the difference-in-difference techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of FTZ policies in encouraging entrepreneurship. Our econometric analysis suggests that they have moderately motivated start-up businesses, evidenced by higher growth of company registrations. The impact was only seen in 2017
but not in any subsequent years. Moreover, the policies haven’t had a clear positive impact on individual firms’ business sizes. The Chinese government hasn’t released any estimation for the costs of FTZ programs, but we expect their economic return to be meager. Therefore, we would suggest not expanding the program further; instead, the government should address the pressing issues that
suppress business activities."

"In 2021, ACT Foundation Research Team set out to capture the landscape of technology adoption for African non-profits. We surveyed over 400 social impact professionals to understand the current state of technology adoption within their organizations and to assess their digital readiness. In this report, we explored the digital investment landscape and investigated the barriers to greater technology adoption. We also attempted to identify areas of support needs across the sector."

"Emissions reporting is the first, and arguably one of the most important steps you can take to reduce your company’s footprint. This will help you identify where you need to take action to reduce your emissions. Once you know what the problem is and where the most intense
areas of emissions are, you can create a strategy to cut your greenhouse gas emissions and potentially save money for your business."

"A significant proportion of the world’s businesses are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Globally, micro-enterprises (SMEs with fewer than ten employees) alone account for 70% to 90% of all firms. As such, SMEs play an important role in reducing global emissions and bringing innovative climate solutions to the market. It is crucial that they are equipped with the tools and resources needed to measure their emissions, set greenhouse gas reduction targets grounded in science, take bold actions, report on their progress and ultimately reduce their emissions. This framework provides guidelines for SMEs on doing exactly that. It is open for anyone to use and can be used directly by SMEs to guide their reporting of climate impacts and strategies to multiple stakeholders. It can also be used by SME support organizations (such as consultancies) and data collectors to guide SMEs in climate disclosure."

"This study demonstrates how investors can begin comparing investments based on impact, not only highlighting impact performance across this sample of investments but also exploring investors’ contribution to that impact in terms of the progress so far in tackling climate change. Fundamentally, this research is intended to cultivate the suite of impact analytic tools to come, such as impact performance benchmarks, ratings, and indices. Its specific findings highlight the tremendous need for further research to enhance the industry’s insights into impact performance and its drivers, enabling evidence-based decision-making. Ultimately, through this research and related efforts, the GIIN seeks to enable investors to optimize for impact at each stage of the investment process, accelerating progress toward global goals."

"In 2018, the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE), with the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), launched the Gender Lens Impact Measurement (GLIM) Fund to enhance the awareness, rigor, and quality of impact measurement for organizations supporting entrepreneurs with a gender lens approach. Each grant from the fund went to a partnership between small and growing business (SGB) support organizations in Latin America and researchers to use measurement for driving improved gender-inclusive strategies. This synthesis report summarises the tools and lessons from these grants on using measurement to increase gender inclusion for SGB support organizations."