Growth and Opportunity: The Landscape of Organizations that Support Small and Growing Businesses in the Developing World

This paper maps the landscape of the small and growing businesses (SGB) sector. It determines both the challenges facing SGB intermediaries and how these challenges can be addressed. The paper is based on the analysis of almost 60 interviews with thought leaders and active practitioners from a variety of organizations, a review of the growing body of literature in the field, and leverages ANDE's experience in the sector. The paper states that intermediaries have a particularly important role to play in the sector in terms of enhancing both, the number and scalability of enterprises. There are a number of challenges that must be dealt with in order to grow and become more effective at supporting SGBs. These include:

• Demonstrating the effectiveness of SGBs and building the developmental, business, and lending cases for supporting their growth;
• Attracting more funding into the sector;
• Increasing cooperation and impact at a local level.