The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and The Asia Foundation prepared this report as a guide to support women's entrepreneurship in Asia and the Pacific. The three parts of the report cover the key barriers that women in Asia and the Pacific face when trying to establish or grow a business, case studies of projects supported by ADB and The Asia Foundation throughout the region, and proposed areas for further research. The recommendations are aimed at creating an enabling environment for women entrepreneurs and strategies for addressing gaps and leveraging opportunities.

This report presents the findings of the second Provincial Facilitation for Investment and Trade (ProFIT) survey in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). It provides a comparative picture of the experiences and perceptions of the business community in complying with government regulations by gender. The report shares analysis in six key areas: (i) ease of starting a business, (ii) transparency and access to information, (iii) regulatory burden, (iv) informal charges, (v) consistency in policy implementation, and (vi) business friendliness of the provincial administration. It notes that women entrepreneurs reported that their business registration takes longer and costs more. The report urges the government to train staff to overcome hidden gender biases and make it easier for women to create and run businesses.

In a world of unprecedented disruption and market turbulence, business transformation revolves around the need to generate new values, unlock new opportunities, drive new growth, and deliver new efficiencies.The world is witnessing volatility in the environment, in technology, in the economy and in society. 'Business as usual' is no longer acceptable, and the pertinent question is how long can humanity continue pursuing consumption and growth predicated on ever-increasing efficiency. The Coronavirus pandemic has amplified concerns about the highly digitized, interconnected, and vulnerable state of the global economy, the relationship with nature, and the prospects for each living being on this planet, including people, to survive and to thrive. To navigate and survive the coming decade of transformative change, every business will need to harness all the ingenuity, creativity and imagination they can muster. Corporate leaders and entrepreneurs will be required to steer their businesses towards a new model of prosperity, based on green and regenerative principles. It is time for leaders in business to overhaul their purpose, plans and strategies for this new context and explore different futures, engage with new partners and create space for experimentation. The only way to prepare for the future is to explore how companies, especially medium and small enterprises as well as women led businesses can transform their future strategies to be more compatible with challenges such as cyber security, human security, ethical principles and financial transparency.This book presents a collection of empirical and original research papers on evolving business strategies within a dynamic global environment to provide valuable insights to scholars, academicians, practitioners, policymakers and students.

Globally, women are disproportionately impacted by climate change and disasters due to gender inequalities and limited opportunities to participate in decision-making processes. To help address this imbalance, this publication provides guidance on how to integrate gender equality in laws and policies on climate change and disaster management in developing member countries of the Asian Development Bank. It provides a conceptual framework and good practice guide based on international norms and examples of national laws. It also demonstrates how gender-responsive laws and policies can contribute to women’s resilience to climate change and disasters. The publication was developed for the use of governments, policy-makers, organizations, and individuals engaged in gender-responsive legislative reforms.

This edition analyses how trade can contribute to economic diversification and empowerment, with a focus on eliminating extreme poverty, particularly through the effective participation of women and youth. It shows how aid for trade can contribute to that objective by addressing supply-side capacity and trade-related infrastructure constraints, including for micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises notably in rural areas.

Examining how the livelihoods, health, and well-being of women in Central and West Asia were disproportionately affected by the pandemic, this report assesses responses and considers how the experience can guide gender mainstreaming. Emphasizing the need for better granular data, it looks at intersecting vulnerabilities and how policies that prioritize women’s economic security and strengthen social protection can better insulate them against future shocks.

Entrepreneurship in context has been described as the third wave in entrepreneurship research. Accordingly, specific socio-economic, political, market, and institutional contexts are key to fostering, enabling, and enacting entrepreneurial activity and behaviours. These contexts shape everyday entrepreneurship experiences. This book is based on the premise that how gender is articulated within the entrepreneurial debate has to acknowledge context. However, context is not a construct that only applies to those economies and situations that differ from the presumed norm of Western developed nations. Adopting a more critical appraisal of how context is positioned within current theorizing around gender and entrepreneurial behaviours offers potential to progress debate whilst acknowledging that competing and contrasting contextual influences require clearer recognition. This book, therefore, has the potential to unearth credible and robust approaches to further examining contextualisation and women entrepreneurship that advances new insights. By exploring and examining how contextual influences shape women’s entrepreneurship, this book challenges the assumption that women entrepreneurship is the same throughout the world. It will be of value to researchers, academics, and students with an interest in entrepreneurship, political economy, economics, and public policy.

This book demonstrates how the capability approach to human development can contribute to the realisation of the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The capability approach dictates that success should not be measured by economic indicators but by people leading meaningful, free, fulfilled, happy, or satisfied lives. Drawing from a range of disciplinary perspectives, this book argues that it is vital that the focus for the SDGs should shift to benefiting the most vulnerable. Case studies from across Asia, Africa, Latin America (Global South), and the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia (Global North) consider how the capability approach can contribute as a practical framework to achieving the SDGs’ ambitions for social, economic, political, and legal progress. Drawing on insights from a range of disciplines, this book will be of interest to researchers and practitioners from the fields of law, politics, international relations, criminology, international development, sociology, public policy, area studies, and others.

Entrepreneurs are now internationalising, and many more are likely to internationalise in the future. Yet, most small finns expand in an opportunistic fashion, because entrepreneurs seldom have the time and resources to gather reliable data about opportunities in foreign countries. Leo-Paul Dana has conducted extensive international field research with a view to compiling key information on the business environment throughout Pacific Asia. Thus, the book is not just another "how to" guide. It reflects what is happening in an important region of our global economy. With this book, businessmen and business analysts, investors, academics and business students will gain invaluable insights into the conditions and opportunities for enterprise in these countries in this region.

Women perform 66% of the world's work, produce 50% of the food, but earn 10% of the income and own 1% of the property. To shed light on why this grim statistic still holds true, Women, Business and the Law aims to examine legal differentiations on the basis of gender in 143 of the world's economies. Women, Business and the Law tracks governments' actions to expand economic opportunities for women across six key areas: accessing institutions, using property, getting a job, providing incentives to work, building credit and going to court. The report uncovers legal differentiations for women and married versus unmarried women such as being able to register a business, open a bank account and work at night. These issues are of fundamental importance. When, because of tradition, social taboos or simple prejudice, half of the world's population is prevented from making its contribution to the life of a nation, the economy will suffer. The empirical evidence does suggest that, slowly but surely, governments are making progress in expanding opportunities for women. It is our hope that data presented in Women, Business and the Law will both facilitate research on linkages between legal differentiation and outcomes for women, and promote better informed policy choices on what governments can do to expand opportunities for women.