Business support can be fundamental to accelerating a businesses’ positive impact on job creation, innovation and productivity. This is why governments across the world spend billions of public funds to help more high quality businesses start and scale. However, not all entrepreneurs have equal opportunities to succeed: research demonstrates, for instance, that minorities and women are often at a disadvantage when it comes to participating in entrepreneurship or accessing support and other resources. Cities in particular play an important role in supporting diverse groups of entrepreneurs, given that local-level, targeted business support is likely to be more effective than national policies.
This report aims to offer city officials a range of policy interventions to better support minority and female entrepreneurs, such as providing business training or procurement. We focus on interventions that address three common challenges:
- How to achieve equitable rates of business formation.
- How to improve business support and network opportunities for Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises
- How to improve equitable access to city contracts and local procurement opportunities.