This week Yvette Torres-Rahman, Partnerships Director at Business Fights Poverty interviews Genevieve Edens, Impact Assessment Manager at Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE).
ANDE has just launched an Impact Report on the state of the small and growing business sector which can be downloaded by clicking here.
One of the key challenges highlighted in the report is how to recruit and retain talent in the Small & Growing Business (SGB) sector. In response, ANDE members are convening in multiple regions to build the sector’s collective capacity to attract top talent that will enter and stay in the sector.
On Business Fights Poverty, members have shared many examples of how SGBs are providing access to health care, offering smallholder farmers better income opportunities, and connecting isolated off-grid communities to new energy sources, amongst other examples of positive social impact.
ANDE’s report has also found that SGBs are an important way of addressing development goals. Hear Genevieve’s perspective on how we can convince more donors and investors that SGBs are an effective means of delivering development services.
An interesting observation is that the popularity of accelerator models for capacity development has grown enormously in recent times. While financial support has increased for these programs, measurement of their effectiveness has not kept pace.
ANDE is working with Emory University’s Social Enterprise @ Goizueta Center and dozens of accelerator programs to collect data that will assess the overall impact of acceleration programs and identify which program elements are most effective at supporting emerging-market entrepreneurs.
