Interventions designed to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are popular among policy makers, given the role SMEs play in job creation around the world. Business support interventions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are often based on the assumption that market failures and...

The use of challenge funds to promote economic and social development continues to grow, but has been the subject of relatively little research. This paper develops a definition of what challenge funds are and how they differ from other development funding mechanisms, taking into account their...

Despite its many advantages, the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean region remains relatively backward in economic and social terms and is rightly considered a potential source of social and political instability. Its average GDP per capita lags behind the global average and is increasing slowly...

The study examines the official bilateral donors’ current aid practice for private sector development (PSD). In particular, it reviews the donors’ major instruments and channels for aid delivery and the extent to which official flows have catalytic effects on private direct foreign capital...

This paper identifies the rationale behind the emergence of private sector development (PSD) as a special area of development assistance. It describes PSD policies’ main elements and instruments and provides an overview of the differences and similarities between the PSD activities of...

The paper presents a comprehensive survey of the ‘shopping list’ of sources of external finance that are directly channelled to the business sector of developing countries. Generally, our analytical survey covers the 1970-2000 period, and includes the distribution of foreign resources...

In recent years, the private sector has been recognized as a key engine of Africa's economic development. Yet, the most simple and fundamental question remains unanswered: how large is the African private sector? We present novel estimates of the size of the private sector in 50 African...

This paper provides an overview of the state of the art of the intersection of development economics and entrepreneurship. Given the relative neglect of entrepreneurship by development scholars it deals with (i) recent theoretical insights from the intersection of entrepreneurship and...

This paper reviews the state of knowledge on the effectiveness of donor interventions aimed at improving the regulatory environment for private sector development in developing countries. Where regulatory reform is undertaken, the expectation is that there will be improvements to economic and...

The paper enquires into the long-term effect of development finance institutions (DFI) on the environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies of companies in which they have invested. It does this through a review of secondary data on the ESG policies of ten companies operating in Africa and...