GENEVA, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Governments in the poorest countries must prioritize dynamic enterprises, enacting policies to help them thrive, create jobs, innovate and transform economies, a UN report said Tuesday.
The report titled "The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Report 2018: Entrepreneurship for Structural Transformation" was released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
"Greater attention needs to be given to the development of domestic supply chains, since linking LDCs to global value chains has not provided any significant boost to local enterprise development," says the report.
The report says that governments in LDCs should, therefore, focus on boosting entrepreneurs and established firms that seize opportunities to create innovative products and services, employ more people and grow dynamic businesses that have a transformative, ripple effect throughout the economy.
UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said the report aims to establish a more active stance for the State in steering the emergence of dynamic and transformational local entrepreneurship.
"By encouraging policymakers to value the benefits of entrepreneurship, this report makes an invaluable contribution to efforts to add value to the least developed countries' implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," said Kituyi.
The report is subtitled: Beyond Business as Usual.
It looks at the conditions for creating and growing high-impact businesses in the least developed countries (LDCs).
This is a group of 47 nations that includes most of sub-Saharan Africa, some Asian countries, and several island states.
The group qualifies for preferential treatment in world trade and climate-change arrangements due to chronic disadvantages that leave them among the world's poorest nations.
The report says that large numbers of people in LDCs are forced into small-scale, low-value entrepreneurship by necessity.
Entrepreneurship is dominated by self-employment (which accounts for 70 percent of total employment), informal micro- and small enterprises with low chances of survival and growth and little propensity to innovate.
Small companies account for 58 percent of all firms in these countries.
The report also reveals that most entrepreneurs in LDCs are "necessity-driven."
There are 1.7 times as many early-stage entrepreneurs in LDCs on average who describe themselves as "opportunity-driven" than there are who say they are "necessity-driven," compared with 2.8 times as many in other developing countries.
"Importantly, the report calls upon the least developed countries not to overlook the pivotal and complementary role played by large enterprises, alongside medium-sized and smaller enterprises, with a view to formulating deliberate strategies to nurture entrepreneurship that has an impact," Kituyi said.
