Entrepreneurship development

See also

The Start and Improve Your Business Programme
Know About Business
Women Entrepreneurship Development
Enterprise development is one of the pillars of the ILO approach to productive employment and decent work. The ILO approach was negotiated at the ILO Labour Conference 2007 by the tripartite partners and reflected in the Declaration on Promotion of Sustainable Enterprises. Based on the Conclusions Concerning the Promotion of Sustainable Enterprises the “governmental and societal recognition of the key role of enterprises in development and strong support, both public and private, to entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity and the concept of mentorship, particularly for start-ups, small enterprises and targeted groups such as women and youth, are important determinants of a conducive business environment. Respect for workers rights should be embedded in programmes targeting entrepreneurial culture».

Entrepreneurship is one of the great management revolutions of the past 30 years, undermining the logic of the old industrial corporation and putting the focus of innovation and growth on the start ups, science-parks, incubators, accelerators, etc.

With many people, including young women and men, unable to secure employment opportunities, encouraging entrepreneurship is an important way of harnessing their enthusiasm, energy and ambition to contribute to economic development. Entrepreneurship strengthens economic growth, speeds up modernization and can play a crucial role in spurring sustainable development and generating decent jobs.

Employment in the private sector is mainly provided by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in different types of economies. SMEs tend to be the biggest employment creators. However, sometimes they face challenges in providing quality jobs.

The keys to successful SME growth and employment creation include:

• a strong and responsible enterprise culture
• an enabling business environment with clear and simple-to-follow rules
• access to finance and business development services.

While some of the constraints to SME growth relate to external factors over which the enterprise has less control, others relate to the capacity and knowledge of potential and existing entrepreneurs. Addressing these latter constraints has been the focus of the ILO support for entrepreneurship development over many years. Through a wide range of tools for business management training and business services development, the ILO has helped build national SME support structures in the countries.

The ILO works to strengthen entrepreneurial management skills through capacity building and training resources that foster adoption of good workplace practices in micro-, small, medium and large enterprises. In the area of management training the ILO has training tools that cover the whole spectrum of target groups, from illiterate micro entrepreneurs to growth oriented small and medium scale entrepreneurs.

At the entrepreneurship development level, it is important to develop tools and programmes that deal with the long term effects of entrepreneurial culture. In this regard, ILO has developed Know About Business (KAB), a practical tool that addresses the challenge of youth unemployment highlighted in the Millennium Development Goals. Its general objective is to contribute towards the creation of an enterprise culture in a country or society, as stipulated by the ILO recommendation 189, by promoting awareness among young people of the opportunities and challenges of entrepreneurship and self-employment, and of their role in shaping their future and that of their country's economic and social development.

The Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) programme is a management-training programme with a focus on starting and improving small businesses as a strategy for creating more and better employment.

The Expand Your Business (EYB) is an integrated business training and support package for small- to medium-scale enterprises which have growth objectives in mind.