Money alone is not enough. Also, not for young refugees and migrants aspiring to become self-employed. They might be the necessary to survive, the idea to explore an opportunity or the aspirations towards growth and expansion like any other entrepreneur. Likewise, there are various forms in which they will become self-employed: it might be solo or hybrid self-employed, a micro or small enterprise, and even a medium sized one. Ans in all cases (external) financing will be needed to start and develop the new ventures but knowledge as well how to use it. The aim to the Young Migrant Entrepreneurs Capacity Building project (in brief YMCB in this guide) is to develop an innovative approach to support young migrants’ entrepreneurship through a combination of education, training, and mentoring. The overall connotation is that access to finance deals with the possibility that individuals or enterprises have to access financial services, including credit, deposit, payment, or insurances provided by third parties – formal and informal. Poor access to finance limits individuals, households, and entrepreneurs to function. Access to finance is expected to benefit society at large by accelerating economic growth and helping to raise income for those in the lower end of the income distribution pyramid in reducing income inequality and poverty. But that is only one face of the same coin. Over the past years it has become evident that effective access to finance is determined by: - How well-prepared the prospective migrant/refugee entrepreneurs are to get started - The level of preparation of trainers and coaches working with migrant or refugee entrepreneurs and how well they understand the context their clients live and operate - The level of understanding of staff for FI’s and the degree to which appraisal procedures do not automatically exclude this group as potential clients
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Entrepreneurship is a viable income-generating option for refugee women. Entrepreneurial work can bypass limits placed on work permits, obstacles in the formal economy, and familial responsibilities. Critical to success is access to and attainment of social capital, but women entrepreneurs are frequently hampered by gender and cultural biases. Due to such limitations, they face difficultly in attaining bridging and linking capitals, which are necessary for gaining access to support networks and target markets within a host society. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play a crucial role in enabling refugees to access support and social capital. NGOs become an instrumental component for women refugees to develop business plans, navigate host country laws and practices, access resources for start-ups, and gain mentorship. However, the types of support available are often NGO-specific, which restricts their applicability. Despite intermittent, beneficial encounters encouraged by NGOs, the long-term impact is questionable due to the variability and inconsistency of service offerings.
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Are migrant entrepreneurs innovative with their business ideas and practices? The introduction of novel business ideas would provide migrant entrepreneurs with a cutting edge advantage against competitors, but the research about this topic is thin on the ground. I propose that the opportunity of migrant entrepreneurs to introduce an innovation is better understood by a closer look at the business idea itself and to which extent it is innovative; by considering the contextual factors where the opportunity structure influences the development of migrant businesses; and by the existence of social connections to share resources and information among entrepreneurs. Such complementary concepts - combining the interaction of the social, human, cultural and financial resources of individual migrants in relation to the wider opportunity structure - provide a comprehensive understanding of the opportunity for entrepreneurs to innovate. By using those contributions as conceptual building blocks, I propose the use of innovativeness levels for migrant entrepreneurs following the processes of adaptation and massification of goods and services introduced by migrants over time. This article builds from existing frameworks: contributions about the definitions and typology of innovation; the mixed-embeddedness approach, which has been largely used to study the opportunity structure; and the model of diffusion of innovations which pays a larger attention to the product and the agency of actors.
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