UNDP Inclusive business in sub-Saharan Africa Toolkit
Inclusive business in sub-Saharan Africa holds great potential to tackle pervasive poverty, improve livelihoods, and improve access to health and education across the continent. By including the lowest income segments of society in business value chains, millions of individuals stand to be lifted out of poverty.
Recognising this, the Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development Cluster’s Private Sector Unit within the UNDP Regional Service Centre for Africa has compiled a compendium of knowledge products on inclusive business in sub-Saharan Africa, which provides a comprehensive overview of the status of IB in the region, plus detailed training tools and handbook to guide key stakeholders in creating an enabling environment for inclusive businesses to flourish. The compendium includes:
A report on the state of inclusive business in sub-Saharan Africa, Realizing Africa's Wealth: Building Inclusive Businesses for Shared Prosperity
A primer on public-private collaboration to achieve sustainable development objectives: Primer on the Role of Government in Inclusive Business
A training handbook, Strengthening Inclusive Business Ecosystems Training Handbook, and supporting documents for assisting UNDP Country Offices and government, private sector, civil society and development partners in creating Inclusive Business Ecosystem Initiatives
Report: Realizing Africa's Wealth
This report describes the status of inclusive business in sub-Saharan Africa and the ecosystems underlying the enterprises and entrepreneurs driving such approaches. It identifies promising opportunities in strengthening these ecosystems, enabling enterprises and entrepreneurs to build more – and stronger – inclusive businesses. While enterprises are the drivers of inclusive businesses, entrepreneurship is required of all societal actors if the surrounding ecosystems are to be developed. Local support institutions are largely absent, and building them will make it considerably easier for inclusive businesses to flourish. By building inclusive business ecosystems, Africa’s wealth can be realized, creating shared prosperity.
Primer: the Role of Government in Inclusive Business
This primer discusses the nature of inclusive businesses, the challenges they face, and the ways in which governments can collaborate with the private sector and other stakeholders in order to achieve sustainable development objectives. For Africa, promoting inclusive economic growth, rapid social and environmentally sustainable development will require innovative and transformative business models.
Handbook: Strengthening Inclusive Business Ecosystems Training
This handbook supports the development of inclusive business ecosystems in Africa. The training is targeted at UNDP Country Office staff members and partners from government, private sector, civil society and development partners that will be involved in inclusive business ecosystem initiatives. The training introduces the core concepts and rationale behind building Inclusive Business Ecosystem Initiatives (IBEIs) and discusses the phases of their implementation. All this is done while building on experiences from three focus countries, which are used as examples throughout the programme.
Supporting the training, there are also training modules, a funding tool and an Inclusive Business Ecosystems Training Presentation.