Small and Medium EnterprisesEvents

On June 4-5, 2018, IPA and the National Board of Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) hosted the 2018 Ghana Women Entrepreneurship Summit (GWES).

Co-hosted by the Access to Information (a2i) Program of the Prime Minister’s Office and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Synopsis The SME sector has the potential to be a driving force of economic growth and employment creation in Bangladesh; however, a host of market and firm-level challenges are holding back this sector from achieving its full potential. For decades, the Government of Bangladesh and other sector advocates have worked on various initiatives to help small businesses grow; yet large-scale and transformational growth has been an elusive target.

The African Microfinance Week (referred to as the SAM, based on the French acronym) is a major conference dedicated to the development of financial inclusion in Africa that takes place every two years. The most recent SAM took place from the 9th to the 13th October, 2017, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The main ambition of the SAM is to provide a unified African platform for exchange on the microfinance issues facing the African continent by bringing together all the professionals of the sector – investors, MFIs, researchers, banks, networks, innovators, governments and others.

On September 19th, Elizabeth Koshy, SME Program Manager, participated in a panel discussion on "Gender and Sustainable Development” at International Conference on Sustainable Development 2017, held at Columbia University in New York. Elizabeth’s presentation on "Using Evidence to Support Women-Owned SMEs" provided an overview of the challenges facing female entrepreneurs and showcased experimental evidence from IPA’s SME portfolio.

Lucia Sanchez, SME Program Director, participated in a panel discussion on "Data for Socially Inclusive Economic Growth” at ICSD 2016 in New York. Lucia’s presentation provided an overview of the key problems facing SMEs around access to finance, human capital, and markets, and showcased a series of interrelated research projects aimed at testing effective solutions to those problems. She also shared IPA’s experience bringing together policymakers and researchers to design and rigorously test innovative solutions to the most binding constraints to SME growth in developing countries.

On September 14th and 20th, IPA Philippines presented two brown bags to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)’s Sustainable Livelihood Program (SLP). On the 14th, IPA presented the results of a literature review of similar SLP micro-enterprise and employment facilitation programs found around the world. The presentation was followed by a lively discussion between IPA and DSWD. On the 20th, IPA presented the initial results of an M&E study to the SLP’s Management Committee.

The SME Program held its Sixth Working Group meeting at the MIT Sloan School of Management on November 20, 2015 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The meeting convened SME Program affiliates to discuss innovative research in the SME space.  Presenters included: Welcome & Overview Lucia Sánchez, Innovations for Poverty Action      “The Growth of New Firms”  Jean-Noël Barrot, MIT Sloan School of Management