Social entrepreneurship for sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa: lessons from business incubation in selected countries

 

The report outlines the activities carried out during the Social Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development in subSaharan Africa: Lessons from Business Incubation in selected countries project. The project seeks to support the formulation of policies designed to catalyze economic development across the continent. The study was carried out as part of an exploratory phase in 3 sub-Saharan African countries representative of the continent’s economic dynamics. These selected countries are: Cameroon, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The overall objective of this project is to map the business incubation practice in the selected sub-Saharan African countries.

In developing countries, taxation is perceived as a brake on economic growth. Indeed, taxes in most of these countries are not sufficiently adapted to the specificity of the taxpayer and often do not consider the weak administrative capacity of the countries in the region. In this context, reforms have been initiated over the last decade to create tax environments that encourage savings, investment, entrepreneurship, and social innovation. This study provides an overview of research on the effects of taxation on social innovation and the corresponding implications for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries, taking three approaches: thematic, chronological, and methodological. Most studies agree that high taxes in business undermine social innovation and thus the achievement of SDGs, as social innovation is known to be a driver of most SDGs and business the vehicle. The majority of the selected studies used primary data collected from samples whose representativeness with respect to the population concerned (notably businesses) is still not explicitly justified.