United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
April 29, 2019
Policy Advocacy – Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a vital role in ensuring sustainable and inclusive economic growth. In developing countries, they provide 60-70% of formal employment. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, the share of SMEs accounts for 80%. UNCTAD has continuously supported developing countries, including the Dominican Republic, Gambia, Tanzania, Ecuador, and Ethiopia in designing and implementing holistic entrepreneurship policies that encourage the foundation of new firms and the scaling up of existing businesses, linked to national economic development strategies. UNCTAD’s assistance in policy formulation advocates a comprehensive, coherent, and coordinated approach, based on its Entrepreneurship Policy Framework (EPF), to identify, formulate, and implement policy measures that are designed to promote entrepreneurship and SMEs. With the EFP, UNCTAD helps countries design initiatives and support institutions to promote entrepreneurship across six interrelated priority areas: formulating national entrepreneurship strategy, optimizing the regulatory environment, enhancing entrepreneurship education and skills development, facilitating technology exchanges and innovation; improving access to finance; and promoting awareness and networking. It also raises awareness of the need to engage representatives of the private and public sectors, academia, and civil society.
