Supportive environments are increasingly essential to successful entrepreneurship and these are evolving across the world.
The ideal entrepreneurial environment has five pillars: (1) access to funding; (2) entrepreneurial culture; (3) supportive regulatory and tax regimes; (4) educational systems that support entrepreneurial mindsets; and (5) a coordinated approach that links the public, private and voluntary sectors.11 There are still huge areas where G20 countries need to take urgent action to improve support for their entrepreneurs. The developed economies are ahead of the emerging markets, as they tend to have deeper and more extensive funding options, stronger education systems, more mature and stable tax and regulatory environments, and more well-developed entrepreneurial cultures. However, rapid-growth markets are beginning to act relative to the imperatives these pillars represent. China’s Ministry of Commerce recently acknowledged that entrepreneurial ventures are currently responsible for 75% of new jobs each year and 68% of exports and has started to focus on improving the regulatory and tax environment for new ventures and SMEs.12 Many rapid-growth markets also have high-profile projects underway to stimulate clusters of entrepreneurial activity. In 2014, there were more than 90 technology hubs, many offering incubators and accelerators, across Africa.13