Mapping the Shift in Business Development Services: Making Markets Work for the Poor

In the last twenty years, microfinance has made it possible for the first time for poor people to access reasonably priced financial services. More recently, another related revolution has started, which may have the potential to be equally dramatic. Small enterprises not only need credit they also need many other services: training, advice, marketing, supplies, premises, accountancy, materials, technology and many others. Without them, credit alone may do no more than add the burden of debt to all the other problems entrepreneurs have to face. Governments and foreign donors have traditionally responded to these needs by trying to provide the services themselves. Despite or because of heavy subsidies, these services have been inadequate and of poor quality, and their main effect has been to acrowd outAE potentially more effective private suppliers. But policy makers are now learning that entrepreneurs are willing to pay the market price for quality services, and that small businesses in the private sector are the best source of services for other small businesses. The goal is to make markets work u in business services as well as in other products. The editor has selected seventeen chapters to illustrate the radical changes that have taken place in the evolution of assistance to small businesses. His introduction shows how the transformation has been inspired by the evolution of microfinance, and illustrates some of the critical issues which are facing business development practitioners today. Business Development Services for Small Enterprise shows how to make markets really work, how to reduce dependence on donor agencies and illustrates critical issues, new findings and radical changes with a wealth of wide-ranging material. This is a key title for all B.D.S. practitioners. Malcolm Harper is Emeritus Professor of Enterprise Development at Cranfield University in the UK. He is Editor-in-Chief of Small Enterprise Development, the international journal of microfinance and business development, and author of numerous books and articles.Harper, Malcolm is the author of 'Mapping the Shift in Business Development Services: Making Markets Work for the Poor', published 2005 under ISBN 9781853395918 and ISBN 1853395919.