About
Mission
A global platform fostering research, teaching, and practice to fight poverty through entrepreneurship.
Purpose
Advance knowledge and understanding of entrepreneurship as a vehicle for poverty alleviation. We seek to encourage individual and collaborative efforts by universities, colleges, policy makers, nonprofits and other organizations to conduct scholarly and applied research, develop case studies, design teaching and intervention tools develop public policy briefs, organize public discussion forums, and pursue community engagement initiatives centered on poverty and entrepreneurship. Our focus is on poverty alleviation in both developed and developing economies.
The Challenge
Poverty is pervasive throughout the world. While an array of approaches to poverty alleviation has been instituted and billions of dollars are spent each year, entrepreneurship has not historically been viewed as a core part of the solution. Both as a means of subsistence for those in poverty and as a pathway out of poverty, venture creation has historically received relatively little attention from scholars, and insufficient attention from those involved with public policy and community action. This is changing, however, as a growing number of scholars, government officials, leaders of NGOs and non-profits, and other stakeholders seek ways to increase levels of entrepreneurial activity and develop the entrepreneurial capacity of those in poverty. Yet, there is a strikingly limited amount of data on such basic questions as the rate at which those in poverty start ventures, categories of ventures they create, venture failure and success rates, the amounts of growth these ventures achieve, the direct and indirect benefits and costs such ventures have both for the individuals involved and their communities, and the relative efficiency of these ventures. In addition, the kinds of institutional arrangements, public policies, and intervention programs that are most effective in fostering successful venture creation by the poor and how these vary by context—are not well understood. This state of affairs results in lack of clarity regarding:
- Priorities when it comes to both scholarly and applied research;
- Preferred approaches when it comes to public policy formulation;
- Best practices when it comes to working with the poor on venture creation and growth, and
- The kinds of resources and tools available to those who seek to foster higher and more successful rates of entrepreneurship among the poor.
As interest in this arena continues to grow, we can make bigger advances if there is more communication, coordination, and collaboration among all interested parties.
Coordinating Institution
The partnership shall initially be based in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame leveraging its gppe global network, research experitse and mission-driven focus on human development.
For more information on GPPE contact