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Policy Brief
Innovative approaches to reach youth entrepreneurship excellence
This policy brief incorporates the issues and recommendations brought forward by the policy dialogue on “Innovative Approaches to Reach Youth Entrepreneurship Excellence”, held in Colombo in June 2022. It provides insights on developing entrepreneurial readiness, fostering women entrepreneurship, creating a favorable ecosystem, celebrating mistakes and promoting entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is a key driver of employment creation and economic growth, as well as a powerful tool for promotion of equality and empowerment. Despite the emerging opportunities, full potential of entrepreneurship is not being utilized, owing to the perceived instability and high-risk. Even those who pursue entrepreneurship do so due to ‘push’ factors, including the difficulty in finding jobs and need of sustaining a livelihood.
The ILO launched the South Asia Leadership in Entrepreneurship (SALE) Program in Sri Lanka and Nepal, under the aegis of the United States Department of State, with the main objective to promote youth entrepreneurship, by facilitating a change in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and encouraging youth transition into the entrepreneurship.
As a core intervention of the SALE project, the ILO in association with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, organized a series of policy dialogues on key thematic areas related to youth entrepreneurship promotion.
The first policy dialogue, held in Colombo in June 2022, under the theme of “Innovative Approaches to Reach Youth Entrepreneurship Excellence”, brought together veteran and aspirant entrepreneurs, heads of state institutions related to entrepreneurship, eco-system players, representatives of academia and leading development partners.
