Startup Acts: An Emerging Instrument to Foster the Development of Innovative High-Growth Firms

ACP countries are faced with high unemployment, political instability, and other well-documented development challenges that demand new solutions to inclusive economic growth. Governments, as a result, have increasingly begun to focus on entrepreneurship, and particularly on Start-ups, as a mean of creating quality jobs, boosting the wider economy’s productivity and growth, and delivering market-based innovations to development challenges. Targetted Start-up legislations (Startup Acts) appear as an interesting tool for fostering entrepreneurship and enabling the development of new firms with high growth potential, through the granting of targeted incentives (tax, subsidies, procurement, etc).

Upcoming events

By supporting business climate and investment environment reforms, the ICR Facility aims to help generate more decent jobs and contribute to improving livelihoods in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

Training on Business Environment Reforms to Support Women’s Economic Empowerment

Women's Economic Empowerment

Training on Busines Environment Reforms to Support Women’s Economic Empowerment What? The course develops awareness and provides tools to advance Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) through Business Environment Reform (BER) in African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Participants learn to apply a gender-sensitive and gender-transformative lens when they work on their own reforms, taking into account […]

How to develop a gender approach in Development Finance Institutions

Access to Finance

What? In these free, self-paced training modules you will learn how to develop a gender finance approach in the development finance institution. It is an interactive way to learn more about institutional gender mainstreaming, actions and measures to be taken in the organisation to ensure gender inclusion. The training contains videos, texts, interactive exercises and […]

Training on Business Environment Reforms Tools

Business Regulation and Policy

In these self-paced modules in “Business Environment Reform Tools”, representatives from public and private stakeholders in African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries will learn how to use practical and straight-forward tools to improve the business environment in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. You will earn a PDF certificate once you pass all the tasks of the four modules. […]

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An Event for Change: Gaps and Solutions to Advance Women’s Economic Empowerment

During the 05 and 06 June 2024, the ICR4WEE Conference welcomed over 140 participants, inclusive of attendees from 36 ACP countries, in Kigali, Rwanda. This ICReport provides a comprehensive overview of the Conference, and reflects upon the critical topics examined throughout the two days of interactive panel discussion and debate, including: Gender-sensitive industrial policies The […]

Business environment reforms for youth employment in ACP countries: lowering barriers to employment and recruitment

This report discusses potential business environment reforms (BER) that present opportunities for advancing youth employment across African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The ACP countries face a significant challenge in this regard, and policymakers play a crucial role in crafting a business environment that actively supports youth employment. The report offers four broad business environment […]

Business Environment Reforms and the Care Economy: The Case of Childcare and Parental Leave Policies

Register for our upcoming event here Care economy is an integral part of Business Environment Reforms (BER). It is central to advance Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE). In its broad definition, the term care economy encompasses labour and services that support caregiving in all its forms. It includes both unpaid and paid care work, for […]

Supporting Diaspora Entrepreneurship To Boost ACP Country Development

This report focuses on how African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries can benefit from the resources of the diaspora to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. It is written as part of the series of reports on “Innovative approaches to support entrepreneurs”. The report finds that, in addition to innovative tools such as crowdfunding […]

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Eswatini and Seychelles adopt new industrial policies for inclusive growth

The Covid-19 pandemic laid bare economic vulnerabilities around the world, and in Eswatini and the Seychelles it highlighted the risks of overdependence on a few sectors to generate growth. More than that, it brought home the imperative of building diverse economies that help reduce inequalities, enhance environmental sustainability and create better employment opportunities for women […]

A voice for the private sector as regional integration advances: the new High Business Council for central Africa

Travel isn’t always simple in central Africa – even between the 11 countries connected as part of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). “Sometimes to travel to another country, you have to take a plane to another part of Africa – even to Europe – to come back to central Africa,” says […]

Inclusive Strategies: A Path to Sustainable Growth in Nigeria

Kaduna State is leading the design and implementation of an innovative policy strategy that can contribute to the Nigeria Agenda 2050 objectives of reducing poverty and inequality and enabling a diversified private sector led economy. This policy will enable a conducive business environment to foster the development of Inclusive Business models. Inclusive Businesses (IBs) are […]

Society’s hidden power: the care economy

Adeline, a young woman from Burkina Faso, wanted to get a job, but she faced the challenge of organising caring for her youngest children. Lots of other women from her area had taken up roles in a government-backed roadbuilding and construction programme and many of them, with no alternative, left their children with older sisters, […]

You may also be interested in these event recordings

Business Environment Reforms through Public- Private Dialogue – Lessons learnt from the ICR Facility’s Interventions

The ICR Facility supports governments, public agencies and private sector representative bodies in African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries to improve their business environment on the basis of Public-Private Dialogue (PPD). PPD is an effective tool to enhance collaboration between public and private actors. It is a continuous and semi-structured process that brings together various […]

Webinar: Trends in Care Economy Policies in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries

The Care Economy — including childcare, eldercare and domestic work — is vital to society, yet it remains invisible, undervalued, and unevenly distributed. The disproportionate share of care and domestic work that falls on women and girls, especially when it is unpaid, is a key barrier to their participation in the workforce and negatively impacts […]

Business Environment Reform for Supporting Young Entrepreneurs: Opportunities for the ACP Region

Many countries in the ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) region have made supporting young entrepreneurs a top priority for economic development and youth employment. Despite this, young entrepreneurs face challenging business conditions and complicated policy and regulatory contexts in launching and running their businesses. This webinar hosted by the ICR Facility provided an opportunity for […]

The Role of Investment Promotion Agencies in Public-Private Dialogue in ACP Countries

Through Public-Private Dialogue, Investment Promotion Agencies contribute to economic policy making and reform, whether through formal and structured processes or informally through their day-to-day activities and contacts with investors. In a previous series of peer-to-peer workshops, IPAs from 8 countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) region had the opportunity to exchange knowledge, share […]

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