A conducive business environment is fundamental to achieving economic stability, sustainability and growth
This component aims to create a more favorable environment for SEED entrepreneurs by fostering public-private dialogue (PPD), advocating for policy reforms that enhance access to finance and other critical business resources, and ensuring that reforms are adequately implemented and popularized.
The business environment can be defined as “a complex set of political, legal, institutional, and regulatory conditions that govern business activities.” A non-conducive environment can pose numerous challenges for entrepreneurs, such as complicating registration or licensing processes, holding them personally liable in case of bankruptcy, failing to provide incentives to attract global financing or talent, or excluding the voices of women and youth, unclarity around business litigation and settlement, etc.
The IYBA-SEED project suggests contributing to identifying potential weaknesses in existing regulatory frameworks, in collaboration with national entrepreneurial ecosystem actors. Once these gaps are identified, entrepreneurial actors can leverage their networks to collectively advocate for reforms, particularly those promoting the inclusion of women and youth.
At the international level, IYBA-SEED aims to facilitate experience sharing among countries through study tours and the exchange of best practices. Through public-private partnerships, government agencies, think tanks, and other public sector leaders can collaborate with entrepreneurial ecosystem actors to develop roadmaps for improving the overall business environment.
Examples of our current activities and pipeline:
Supporting public-private dialogue and advocacy
Every country is leveraging PPDs to advocate for policy reforms that support SEED entrepreneurs.
- In Benin, advocacy for fiscal reforms and tax incentives for SEED beneficiaries.
- In Togo, the development of a concerted and inclusive strategy for promoting entrepreneurship in the targeted municipalities.
- In Kenya, training stakeholders and ecosystem actors to properly conduct advocacy for results at the county level.
- In all countries, supporting participation in national & regional PPD platforms.
- Supporting the UEMOA commission in setting up a regional PPD platform for discourse on regional market access, movement of people, and joint strategies to resolve common challenges (to be piloted in Benin, Togo and Senegal).
Providing technical support to ongoing political reforms
- Implementation of national legal reforms in favor of entrepreneurs, such as the Startup Act (Senegal) and the SME legal framework (Kenya).
- Monitoring and evaluation system for policy development/implementation (Kenya).
- Supporting AoEEs in executing their advocacy roles (Kenya and Benin).
- Start-up registration platform and labeling criteria (Senegal).
- Supporting the Directorate for Women's Economic Empowerment (DAEF), which operates under the Ministry for the Family and Solidarity, to draft a framework law on women's economic empowerment (Senegal)
Strengthening frameworks for access to finance
Participating in the development of alternative financing for all countries, or advancing/promoting the creation of start-up funds and funds of funds (Senegal, S. Africa).
