Publication: Targeted SME Financing and Employment Effects: What Do We Know and What Can We Do Differently?
Date
2017-06-05
ISSN
Published
2017-06-05
Author(s)
Kumar, Ruchira
Abstract
SME’s form a dominant share of the
private sector in developing countries, and account for more
than 50 percent of jobs in their respective economies.
Besides their positive employment effects, the growth and
vibrancy of these firms is also important for broader
economic growth, diversification of economic base and as a
source of innovation that is exhibited by some of the
start-ups. Women-owned SMEs are emerging as one of the fast
growing segments within the SME sector. Youth play an
important role in the creation of new firms and start up
activities. Given this importance of SMEs for creation of
more, better and inclusive jobs, there is significant focus
on understanding the constraints to growth of this sector
and implementing programs to address them in the World Bank
Group and the other development institutions. Among the
several constraints that they face, access to finance is
usually cited as the most important and there are several
instruments that can be applied to address this constraint.
However, what is the evidence of impact of these programs on
the employment effects? This note brings together the
learnings and evidence from access to finance interventions
on employment and provides some recommendations for
development practitioners who seek to maximize this
objective from their access to finance interventions.
Citation
“Kumar, Ruchira. 2017. Targeted SME Financing and Employment Effects: What Do We Know and What Can We Do Differently?. Jobs Working Paper;No. 3. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27477 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”