The Vision
Economic development requires sustainable and shared increases in per capital income accompanied by changes in the structural composition of an economy towards higher value added goods and more efficient production methods.
Entrepreneurs can contribute to economic development by facilitating the reallocation of resources from less to more productive uses, by performing ‘cost-discovery’, ‘gap-filling’, and ‘input-completing’ functions in the economy and by supporting structural change.
The time for action is now. We need resources that spur growth but at the same time create opportunities for all, ensuring that the benefits of economic activity are broadly shared so that living standards improve for all segments of the population, including the young, the women, the old, the poor and the migrants.
TEN is all about supporting entrepreneurship since it can play as a conduit for inclusiveness. It paints a picture of the scale and scope of self-employment and entrepreneurship activities. Also examines barriers and provides guidance for everyone on how these barriers can be overcome, focusing on business creation by the unemployed, the design of business development services and making economic systems friendly to entrepreneurship and self-employment.
The good news is a number of NGOs, public and other foundations do exist to support entrepreneurs in different aspects such as financing, mentoring, and etc. except none of them provide a sufficient knowledge to back-up entrepreneurs in order to be well prepared primarily to discipline their business dreams, plan, launch and strategically manage their businesses. TEN was created to fill this “quality“ gap.
A recent report issued by the OECD shows, for example,that young people are twice as likely as adults to report a lack of entrepreneurship skills (18% vs. 8%) as a barrier to business creation, and women are more likely than men to report that it would be difficult to reconcile business ownership with family commitments (8% vs. 4%). TEN is create to overcome such barriers to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to pursue entrepreneurship and self-employment, regardless of their personal characteristics and background.
TEN’s inclusive entrepreneurship policy aims to address the entrepreneurship “quality gap” by significantly lower levels of turnover, income from self-employment and survival rates for businesses owned by women, youth and immigrants. It is important to steer business starters towards activities that offer good prospects for income generation and survival and to help them develop good quality business management and business models.