"Encouraging social and commercial entrepreneurship : what can governments do ?".

Discover the proceedings of the second World Entrepreneurship Forum, Lyon, France, November 2009.

I Finance and tax

1-     Develop new early-stage sources of capital, and more alternatives to the traditional commercial banks, offering both loan finance and support

2-     Create innovative incentive-based social grants

3-     Help SMEs move to the next level through better infrastructure scaling

4-     Allow new start-ups to defer tax until a later stage of their development

II Laws and regulation

1-     Establish a legal framework that enables SMEs to cluster and take advantage of tax and other breaks available to bigger companies

2-     Simplify regulation, and reduce the administrative burden for SMEs

3-     Provide specific help to women entrepreneurs

4-     Improve corporate governance by encouraging SMEs to create ‘expert boards’, indemnified against financial loss by the government

III Support, empowerment, and education

1-     Encourage large companies to work more closely with SMEs

2-     Celebrate entrepreneurial role models for women and underrepresented groups

3-     Create more support networks for entrepreneurs

4-     Develop programmes to teach children, young people, and older people about enterprise

5-     Give more help to SMEs to participate in government procurement