Why Small Businesses Fail to Invest in Their People — and What BDS Can Do About It In a knowledge-based economy, the competitive edge no longer belongs to those with the most machines or the lowest prices. It belongs to those with the best people. Yet for many small and medium enterprises, investing in staff … Read more
Few examples in European business development illustrate the potential of public-private collaboration as cleanly as Hamburg’s Initiative for Business Start-ups (Hamburger Existenzgründungs-Initiative, HEI). Launched as a deliberate experiment in market-friendly intervention, it has — over more than a decade — grown into one of the city’s most enduring tools for connecting entrepreneurs with the support … Read more
Series Evaluation Insights for Policy and Programming Context The Micro Projects Programme II Suriname operated between 1999 and 2005 with financing of about five million euro from the eighth European Development Fund, following an earlier government run micro projects programme considered less suited to mobilize civil society. The programme sought to address persistent poverty, social … Read more
Series Evaluation Insights for Policy and Programming Final Evaluation of the Guyana Training Agency Programme (GTA), Guyana Context The Guyana Training Agency Programme was conceived against a backdrop of national skills shortages, weak technical and vocational education and training systems, and high levels of emigration of skilled workers from Guyana. The development challenge centred on … Read more
Series Evaluation Insights for Policy and Programming Context The Caribbean University Level Programme CULP was a regional higher education initiative funded under the sixth and seventh European Development Funds and implemented in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and the Dominican Republic. It responded to structural development challenges in the Caribbean, including small and vulnerable island … Read more
Series Evaluation Insights for Policy and Programming Context Belize is a small, highly indebted Caribbean nation where poverty has remained a persistent structural challenge. The Country Poverty Assessment of 1995/96 found that 33% of the population fell below the poverty line, with rural poverty rates reaching 42.5%. The most vulnerable groups included young people, the … Read more
