One of the most important uses of entrepreneurship is raising-up underdeveloped economies which, in turn, creates jobs, raise standards of living, and improve sustainability. The latter is a major objective of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda for 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all”. Among them are health, education, zero poverty and hunger, climate change and decent work and economic growth. It is because the U. N. sees the latter, work and economic growth, as springboard to all other SDGs that entrepreneurship has reached a focus of importance. As a consequence, five years ago a global small and medium-sized enterprise day was created. Entrepreneurship’s own International Council for Small Business (ICSB) has partnered with the U. N. to help promote entrepreneurship in furtherance of economic growth.
ICSB is the primary international entrepreneurship organization in the U. S., and its current President Ayman El Tarabishy from George Washington University was chiefly responsible for the day’s planning and execution for which we all owe a debt of gratitude. Each year’s event corresponds with release ICSB’s Annual Global Micro-Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Report full of important data. Among topics are Top Ten Trends for 2022, How Digitalization Produces SME Growth, the arrival of an entrepreneurial revolution, and use of entrepreneurship ecosystems to catalyze ethical technology. Those and other topics are inside the 110-page report available in PDF format and summarized here: https://icsb.org/toptrends2022/.
The world is in a state of uncertainty with new Covid-19 variants and their effects on businesses and governments around the world. Resilience has been the most popular theme for 2021. Nevertheless, MSMEs and other forms of sustainable, humane entrepreneurship provide the best framework for recovery. They are, after all, the most flexible and the most in touch with their local communities which allows them to use innovation to expand what a recovery might look like. Change in the role of the women entrepreneur, decentralized finance enabling more SMEs, application of A. I. (artificial intelligence) on top of digital marketing, and Solopreneurs are among examples.
By editor Clint Day who watched proceedings on U. N. TV.