In an effort to help inform policy decisions regarding entrepreneurship, Global Entrepreneurship Week has recently announced The Global Entrepreneurship Week Policy Survey.  Through this project, the Monitor Group and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation have teamed up to capture the perceptions of entrepreneurs on their country’s entrepreneurial environment.  From gathering responses to the survey, GEW hopes to get a better handle on which countries and policies inhibit or enable successes in enterprise.  The results will be distilled and inform a polished report on entrepreneurial ecosystems

The survey is offered 8 languages and should take no more than 20 minutes to complete.  GEW has asked that participants help identify other entrepreneurs in their respective countries and pass along the survey.  Click one of the links below to access the survey:

• English
• Spanish
• French
• German
• Chinese
• Arabic
• Russian
• Korean

If you would like a copy of the final report when it is published, simply send a request to survey@unleashingideas.org with your name, country and email address included.

IMANI, a Ghana based think-tank, recently discovered that many successful entrepreneurs in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya own on average six businesses each.  These “parallel entrepreneurs,” as The Economist dubs them, often create networks of businesses across different sectors in order to fill gaps that exist.  One respondent to IMANI’s survey owned 60 firms!

As The Economist sees it, there are several reasons for this hyperactivity.  In areas emerging from periods of civil war, such as Liberia, entrepreneurs see many opportunities for wealth during reconstruction and take advantage of the moment.  Others start new ventures when approached by friends or regular customers who have come to trust their quality and request new services. Continue reading ‘Filling the Voids: Why African Entrepreneurs Own Many Businesses’ »