Small and Growing Businesses in Africa: Profiles, Successes and Challenges

In Sub-Saharan Africa as elsewhere, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) play a crucial role in economic development and job creation. However, because of a general lack of knowledge about this particular segment, the sector hardly achieves its full potential. In order to better meet MSMEs’ needs, a first step consists of identifying the profiles, growth paths, success factors and challenges faced by those who managed to turn their microenterprises into small or medium entities, referred to as Small and Growing Businesss (SGBs).

As microenterprises are likely to resort to microfinance institutions to get access to financial services, ADA has coordinated a series of three studies relying on five MFIs in Ethiopia, Kenya and Madagascar in order to identify a sample of SGB owners and interview them individually to get details about their paths.

This study is the synthesis of these three surveys and specifically aims at providing detailed information about entrepreneurs’ profiles, about the main challenges and obstacles they faced through their growing process and about their current financial and non-financial needs. Based on such information, general recommendations are made to financial services providers and other organizations supporting MSMEs.