This paper examines each major element of the village banking technology and how it has been liberalized so far, particularly in four leading Latin American village banking institutions: FINCA Nicaragua, Pro Mujer Bolivia, Compartamos (in Mexico), and CRECER (in Bolivia). It then analyzes how...

This presentation discusses business development services and providers, in the context of developing a stronger industry.

This documents explains the basic principles and concepts of the Business Development Centers (BDC) model of Swisscontact, a company providing professional and vocational training, environmental protection and small enterprise development in 25 countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa...

This study focuses on how Latin America¿s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can participate in global markets in a way that provides for sustainable growth. In addition, it study analyzes the impact of collective efficiency on clusters upgrading and undertakes an investigation of the...

The technology transfer process between a public laboratory and a company has been the subject of many publications and has been widely discussed in economic theories. This article will highlight several new identified asymmetries occurring between the different actors being part of the...

Female entrepreneurs should not be treated as a monolithic category; rather, they are a diverse and complex group, with varied backgrounds, circumstances, and worldviews. Previous research has shown that entrepreneurial potential in Slovenia is not fully utilized (Rebernik et al., 2009). Thus,...

The Conference gave impetus to the changing paradigm for assistance to small enterprises: away from the direct provision of business development services by governments and donor agencies toward the development of markets for BDS appropriate to the needs of small enterprises. By facilitating the...

This presentation discusses the matching grant program started in Argentina in August of 1996. The objective of the program is to help increase the international competitiveness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by facilitating access to, and reducing costs of export related services. This...

This paper reviews, analyzes, and documents the current IDB experience in "productive integration" logic, in order to generate a pool of useful knowledge that will contribute to improving the design and implementation of future projects. This logic is based on the assumption that, by cooperating...