Think entrepreneurship is critical for global development? This week the U.S. government indicated it does too with the
announcement of a new initiative aimed at coordinating its
global entrepreneurship efforts and spurring additional
investment.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced the Spark Global
Entrepreneurship coalition, made investing in women and
youth entrepreneurs a top priority, called for greater
investment in emerging market entrepreneurs and
introduced nine presidential ambassadors for
entrepreneurship in an event at the White House.
The goal of Spark is to generate more than a billion dollars
in private investment for entrepreneurs around the world by
the end of 2017, with half of those funds targeting women
and young entrepreneurs.
“At a time when the world is more interconnected than ever,
we’ve got unprecedented opportunities to help more people
access capital and resources and networks that they need to
succeed,” President Obama said in a speech announcing the
initiative this week. “At a time that we’re facing challenges
that no country can meet by itself — lifting people out of
poverty, combating climate change, preventing the spread of
disease — helping social entrepreneurs mobilize and
organize brings more people together to find solutions.”
Rather than create new programs or a new institution, the
effort will serve as a central coordinating role for existing
U.S. government programs, including youth leadership
initiatives and programs like the U.S. Agency for
International Development’s Development Innovation
Ventures and Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship.
Some existing programs will expand opportunities for
women and young entrepreneurs, according to the White
House statement.
This announcement precedes two events — one in Spain
and the other in Nigeria — that will look to draw attention
and funding to entrepreneurship in the lead-up to this
summer’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi,
Kenya, which is the first time the event will be held in sub-
Saharan Africa.
There are now 17 presidential ambassadors for global
entrepreneurship, which include a range of CEOs and
investors from Julie Hanna, Kiva’s executive chair of the
board, to Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky, and
Steve Case, the chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC who is
perhaps best known for co-founding America Online. Those
ambassadors have all created a specific initiative and
committed to making contributions through time, funds or
awareness-raising to help meet the $1 billion goal.
Having the private sector representatives on board as part
of the initiative will allow agencies like USAID to work with
them in partnership to leverage their skills, expertise and
resources.
However, the SPARK initiative and the latest announcements
aren’t likely to mean a significant increase in U.S.
government dollars to entrepreneurship, but the effort is
designed to help mobilize private capital and help the
various entrepreneurship programs in different agencies
better coordinate, said Ricardo Michel, the director of the
Center for Transformational Partnerships in USAID’s U.S.
Global Development Lab.
“Our ability as U.S. government to have one place of entry to
think about entrepreneurship ... will be a tremendous
benefit,” he said. “Instead of shopping around [businesses
and entrepreneurs] can spend time more efficiently talking
to the right parties.”
Often the private sector or potential entrepreneurs will find
it difficult to find the program or agency where their idea or
business has the best fit. Greater coordination can help
mitigate some of those problems by breaking down silos
around communications and finance and allowing various
agencies to better understand what options others offer.
The U.S. government partners in the Spark initiative have
met once to discuss information sharing and discuss a
structure, which is still being designed but what has been
proposed is akin to a secretariat, he said.
The Global Development Lab’s programs will continue to
focus on building entrepreneurs’ capacity and helping build
the bridge to financing opportunities by working to de-risk
investments and connecting investors to entrepreneurs.
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About the Author
Adva Saldinger is a Devex Impact reporter. She covers the
intersection of business and international development.
Previously, Adva has worked as a reporter at newspapers in
both the US and South Africa. Most recently, she has been
ghostwriting a memoir for James Kofi Annan, a former child
slave and NGO founder in Ghana.
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