Like many developing countries, Bolivia has a nascent, but promising entrepreneurial environment. The country has a good number of institutions that offer financial and technical services that network the country’s millions of micro-entrepreneurs. However, as readers of this blog are well aware, data has confirmed time and again that it is young firms that grow that provide the most benefits to society in terms of job and wealth creation and innovation. Thus, the challenge ahead for Bolivia is to enable more growth entrepreneurs.
The current interest in entrepreneurship, even if focused on
micro-entrepreneurs, is good news for at least two reasons. First,
international organizations like the World Bank
and the Andean Development Corporation have supported programs
undertaken by the institutions helping micro-entrepreneurs because
entrepreneurship, even at that scale, has proven to be a good way to
lift people further from the poverty line. The United Nations
estimates that 90% of the three million Bolivian rural inhabitants are
living in conditions of poverty and marginalization, and
entrepreneurship is a useful tool to palliate this human crisis. Second,
as Miguel Hoyos from Red Bolivia Emprendedora
(RBE - Bolivian Entrepreneurship Network) which hosts Global
Entrepreneurship Week in Bolivia pointed out to me, these institutions
could adjust their methodologies as the country’s entrepreneurial
environment evolves to support growth entrepreneurs.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Bolivia Advancing a Nascent Entrepreneurial Ecosystem - Entrepreneurship.org
Author: Jonathan Ortmans is president of the Public Forum Institute, a non-partisan organization dedicated to fostering dialogue on important policy issues. In this capacity, he leads the Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship, focused on public policies to promote entrepreneurship in the U.S. and around the world. In addition, he serves as a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation.
