Today, USAID celebrates National Entrepreneurship Day.
Entrepreneurs, both large and small, create jobs and spur sustainable growth that delivers benefits to people in the United States and around the world. Having spent part of my early career working to encourage investment in promising entrepreneurs throughout Africa, I’ve seen firsthand the transformations that can take place in peoples’ lives and communities when we help foster strong cultures of entrepreneurship.
In the lead up to Global Entrepreneurship Week, a worldwide celebration of innovators and job creators, USAID has partnered with other U.S. Government agencies to highlight the ways we can work with entrepreneurs to help them realize success. Every day, entrepreneurs in developing countries drive economic growth, create jobs, and contribute to development outcomes in USAID priority sectors including food security, global health, and access to energy.
Development Innovation Ventures grantee Off-Grid: Electric’s entrepreneurs are lighting up Tanzania through more reliable, affordable, and sustainable electrical services. Photo Credit: Matthieu Young
USAID recognizes the value in supporting entrepreneurs who advance market-based solutions using sustainable business models. Particularly in this current fiscal climate, enabling entrepreneurs to deliver development results that are sustainable beyond ongoing donor support is one of the best ways to leverage USAID funding. As a donor, our role is to help remove barriers that stand in the way of entrepreneurs starting and scaling their businesses, while also addressing market failures that limit the inclusion of poor and vulnerable populations. Our investments address common challenges facing entrepreneurs such as a lack of access to capital; limited availability of technical assistance, mentoring and peer networks; and a lack of awareness among investors regarding investment-ready enterprises.
Since 2010, the United States has budgeted about $4 billion annually to support programs related to entrepreneurship globally. USAID—particularly the Office of Innovation and Development Alliance, or what we call IDEA—has been proud to be a part of this ongoing commitment.
For instance, USAID is launching the Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship (PACE) initiative to support entrepreneurial ventures that have the potential to lift some of the poorest communities in the world out of poverty. USAID will direct up to $10 million over the next three years to help develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem and scale enterprises in developing countries that offer market-based solutions in areas like food security, global health, and energy access. Today, USAID launched an open call for partnership concept papers (PDF) , inviting organizations to submit ideas on ways to partner and co-invest with USAID.
USAID also recently announced a new $4.1 million Global Development Alliance with Echoing Green, Newman’s Own Foundation, General Atlantic, Pershing Square Foundation, and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Called “Priming the Pump,” the partnership will invest in young social entrepreneurs in developing countries who are pioneering innovative new solutions to major development challenges.
These are just two examples of some of the USAID initiatives designed to harness the power of entrepreneurs to advance global development that we have forthcoming. Additional fantastic entrepreneurship efforts coming out of USAID include:
- USAID’s forthcoming partnership with Yunus Social Business (YSB) to promote entrepreneurship and the development of “social businesses” in vulnerable and underserved communities around the world and to collaborate on the development of social business incubator funds in a targeted set of developing countries
- The USAID-Skoll Innovation Investment Alliance, a Global Development Alliance with the Skoll Foundation and Mercy Corps, identifies and invests in innovative social entrepreneurs to enable them to scale up their business models for delivering sustainable impact in areas such as education, climate change, water, and food security. The first organization supported through the partnership, Imazon, uses the latest mapping technology and satellite imagery to help local governments in Brazil stop illegal deforestation in the Amazon.
- Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) is an investment platform that finds, tests, and scales new solutions to development challenges around the world. DIV is currently investing in over 80 entrepreneurial solutions in eight sectors and 27 countries around the world. Many of these solutions are almost elegant in their simplicity. For example, DIV is supporting Georgetown University researchers who are using stickers, like the kind my daughters are always putting on their notebooks, to reduce road deaths in Kenya. DIV is also working with the U.K.’s Department for International Development (DFID) on a multilateral global investment platform called GDIV that builds on DIV’s success in supporting breakthrough solutions to global development challenges.
As we embark on Global Entrepreneurship Week, I look forward to not only learning about the impactful work of emerging social enterprises, but continuing to develop new ways USAID and the U.S. Government can partner to bring these game changers to scale.
Learn more about USAID’s Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship (PACE) initiative.
Visit USAID on LinkedIn to read “My First Job” stories from USAID employees, partners and beneficiaries. Share your story on Twitter using #GEW2013!
