IDRC supports research which fosters creative entrepreneurs like this shopkeeper in Kenya. IDRC photo: Peter Bennett.

IDRC recognizes that entrepreneurship can promote efficiency, create poverty-reducing jobs, and ease hardship. The Centre has long valued industry, trade, and commerce as engines of economic growth. From its own practical support for private sector development, IDRC has learned that two kinds of assistance can pay dividends: improving the business environment, and stimulating innovation.

To enhance the general environment for business, the wealth-producing potential of entire industrial sectors must be unleashed. Furthermore, when creative entrepreneurs succeed, the innovations they invent, manufacture, and market will flourish and multiply.

But solid evidence is needed to underpin such measures, and here IDRC’s role in funding research for development can make a special contribution. A variety of IDRC programs are involved in supporting research on private sector development.

Read more about IDRC's work on Private Sector Development or Download the PDF Version

NEWS

• IDRC at the Growing Inclusive Markets Forum – Read about IDRC's role in the upcoming Growing Inclusive Markets (GIM) Forum, which will take place in Halifax, NS on June 20 and 21, 2008.

• New IDRC Book: Competition and Development: The Power of Competitive Markets – This new IDRC book demonstrates the importance of true and fair competition to sustainable development and an effective marketplace, touching on issues of globalization, consumer welfare, cartels and monopolies, and trade liberalization.

• CIDA's Private Sector Development Portal – This information portal on private sector development is run by the Canadian International Development Agency. Register to receive regular announcements and news updates.

Featured Articles

• A Global Vision for Small Business in Egypt – Once overlooked and undervalued, small-scale businesses are now front and centre as Egypt takes bold steps to transform its economy, with the strategic support of the SME Policy Project and research backed by IDRC. Download the PDF version of this article.

• Finding India's Missing Middle – Dr Dipak Mazumdar, a professor at the University of Toronto, explains why a middle class has failed to emerge in India despite a decade-long economic boom and a steady decrease in the number of Indians living in poverty.

• IDRC on Microfinance and Poverty – Find out how IDRC is supporting micro-entrepreneurs through undertakings such as providing information and communication technologies to rural villages in Bangladesh, researching the potential benefits of micro-insurance schemes, and helping small-scale farmers link with new markets and new sources of information.  Download the PDF version of this article.

Research in Action

• Business Regulation Evaluation Group in Latin America – Teams of researchers will be examining the long-term impact of a shifting regulatory environment that stands to benefit all enterprises, especially small businesses in key Latin American municipalities.

• Trust Africa Investment Climate and Business Environment (ICBE) Research Fund – IDRC has partnered with Trust Africa and the Foundation for Sustainable Enterprise and Development to establish the ICBE Research Fund, which aims to contribute to the sustainable development of the private sector in Africa.

• Healthy Competition Helps Development – This website provides an overview of the issue of competitive markets and development, and highlights some of the research IDRC is involved in.

• Creating an Economically-Enabling and Competitive Business Environment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip – In a region where the business environment is rife with impediments to trade and where unemployment is pervasive, IDRC research is supporting small entrepreneurs with the objective of improving the livelihoods of the Palestinian people.

• Regoverning Markets: the Keys to Inclusion of Small-Scale Producers in Dynamic Markets – Through its research, IDRC is supporting small- and medium-scale farmers in developing countries who are struggling with rapid, unprecedented changes in the agri-food markets, which often benefit larger farmers.