Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development

A/RES/79/201View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 18Sustainable development, published in 2024.

What other versions does this mandate have?

5 versions · 2017–2024

2024A/RES/79/201Entrepreneurship for sustainable developmentLatestCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/77/160Entrepreneurship for sustainable developmentCompare with previous version
2020A/RES/75/211Entrepreneurship for sustainable developmentCompare with previous version
2019A/RES/73/225Entrepreneurship for sustainable developmentCompare with previous version
2017A/RES/71/221Entrepreneurship for sustainable development

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

Who cites this mandate in the budget?

7 entities

Extracted automatically from each entity’s budget submission.

What subjects does this mandate have?

4 topics

Employment Entrepreneurship Sustainable Development Women

What does this mandate say?

40 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General;

Reiterates the need to promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all, stresses the positive role that entrepreneurship plays in driving job creation, reducing inequalities and expanding opportunities for all, including for women and youth, persons with disabilities, older persons, Indigenous Peoples, and those in vulnerable situations, and in that regard emphasizes the importance of improved regulatory environments and policy initiatives that promote entrepreneurship, including social entrepreneurship, and foster micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises;

Stresses the need to highlight the value of entrepreneurship and its contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the eradication of poverty in all its forms and dimensions, by promoting policies, initiatives and programmes that support the development of an enabling entrepreneurial ecosystem, including through entrepreneurial skill-building, multi-stakeholder partnerships, raising public awareness, reinforcing local support networks and employing specific measures aimed at removing negative preconceptions and negative cultural biases;

Encourages Governments to take a coordinated and inclusive approach to promoting entrepreneurship involving all government entities and stakeholders, while noting initiatives of civil society, academia and the private sector as important entrepreneurship drivers, and to develop coherent and targeted policies and strategies, taking into account national priorities and circumstances, that address the legal, social and regulatory barriers to equal, effective economic participation, and stresses the need for a comprehensive and holistic approach to entrepreneurship that includes long-term and cross-sectoral strategies, including through strengthening disaggregated data collection to generate better insights for the promotion of sustainable entrepreneurship and to monitor and evaluate progress in implementation;

Acknowledges the need for Member States to develop policies and, where appropriate, strengthen national and international policy regulatory frameworks and their coherence, harnessing the potential of science, technology and innovation, closing technology gaps and scaling up capacity-building at all levels to better align private sector incentives with public goals, including incentivizing the private sector to adopt sustainable practices, and foster long-term quality investment, taking into account the importance of responsible business practices and corporate social responsibility, as reflected in the 10 principles of the United Nations Global Compact and in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework, environmental, social and governance performance standards and greater transparency in supply chains to end forced and child labour;

Recognizes the vital role of entrepreneurship in the development of regional economic integration, which can be an important catalyst for implementing economic reforms, reducing trade barriers and decreasing trade costs;

Also recognizes that entrepreneurs can address sustainable development challenges by developing effective and simple solutions in the areas of utility services, education, healthcare, hunger eradication and the environment, and that social entrepreneurship, including cooperatives and social enterprises, can help to alleviate poverty and catalyse social transformation by strengthening the productive capacities of vulnerable groups, including persons with disabilities, and producing goods and services that are accessible to them;

Acknowledges the value of entrepreneurship education and the dissemination of entrepreneurial thinking across all sectors, encourages all relevant actors to increase efforts to systemically integrate entrepreneurship within the formal and informal education systems, including through, inter alia, skills development, career guidance, and behavioural approach programmes such as the Empretec programme and the Entrepreneurship Policy Framework and Implementation Guidance of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the Start and Improve Your Business programme of the International Labour Organization, the International Trade Centre programmes, to support trade and international business development for micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises, capacity-building, professional training programmes, business incubators and national centres of excellence, as well as online platforms and e-mentorships, such as the SME Trade Academy of the International Trade Centre, and encourages cooperation and networking and the sharing of best practices while fostering innovation and using innovative teaching methods in line with the demands of the competitive markets and ensuring the full participation of women and girls;

Encourages Governments to strengthen science and technology education policies and curricula to promote girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics so that they are relevant to the needs of and benefit women and girls, and encourages investment and research in sustainable technology that meets the needs of women, particularly in developing countries, in order to strengthen their capacities, so as to enable women to leverage science and technology for entrepreneurship and economic empowerment in the changing world of work;

Encourages all relevant stakeholders to further develop financial literacy and financial education programmes that include an emphasis on the impact of finance on sustainable development, as appropriate, in order to ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to access financial services, in particular women and girls, farmers and those working in micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises;

Recognizes that technological improvement, particularly through the diffusion of technology, including artificial intelligence, can provide new opportunities for businesses to improve their competitiveness, increase their productive capacities and resilience, adapt to shocks and fast-changing environments and to foster an open, fair, inclusive and non-discriminatory digital environment for all that enables micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises to access and compete in the digital economy, and in this regard encourages Member States to increase cooperation in support of technology exchange and transfer on mutually agreed terms, innovation, capacity-building programmes and the sharing of best practices for promoting entrepreneurship, especially in developing countries;

Also recognizes the contribution of digital technologies and innovation to foster entrepreneurship and support the resilience and formalization of micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises, and in this regard encourages Member States and all relevant stakeholders to support inclusive entrepreneurship through digitalization, including through digital government services, digital economic services, fintech, scaling up digital skills training and digital literacy, improved regulatory frameworks and developing targeted strategies to address digital divides, including the gender digital divide;

Invites Member States to support the digital entrepreneurship of women, including for micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises, including for developing local solutions, promote innovation and decent job creation and close the gender digital divide;

Acknowledges that promoting entrepreneurship can stimulate new production processes and technology development, including the building of endogenous capacities for enabling climate change mitigation and adaptation and enhancing energy efficiency, and recognizes that such policies could help Governments to meet their targets for the Paris Agreement on climate change;

Highlights the importance of supporting technologies that can have a high social return, correspond to local needs and contribute to technological upgrading and social development;

Acknowledges that the private sector contributes to the achievement of sustainable development and poverty eradication, and that partnerships with the private sector play an important role in promoting entrepreneurship, generating employment and investment, increasing revenue potential, developing new technologies and innovative business models and enabling high, sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth while protecting workers’ rights;

Emphasizes the important role of national efforts aimed at bringing all workers from the informal to the formal economy, including the formalization of micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises, in order to integrate them into national social security and social protection systems, as appropriate, expand the formal economy, increase fiscal revenues, increase entrepreneurs’ resilience and their access to finance and public support programmes, address barriers to continued operation in the formal sector, and boost growth perspectives, including by simplifying administrative processes, such as enabling business registration through single-window and e-registration procedures, notes that recommendation No. 204 of the International Labour Organization can provide useful guidance on the transition from the informal to the formal economy, and recognizes that women face unique barriers to entering the formal workforce;

Invites Member States to reduce the structural barriers to women in transitioning from the informal economy to formal employment and outline measures to recognize, reduce and redistribute women’s and girls’ disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work, reward and represent paid care work by promoting decent paid care and domestic work for women and men in the public and private sectors and by providing social protection, safe working conditions and equal pay for equal work or work of equal value, thereby facilitating the transition of informal workers, including those engaged in informal paid care and domestic work, into the formal economy;

Also invites Member States to strengthen the capacity of national financial institutions to reach out to those who have no access to banking, insurance and other financial services, particularly women and women-led micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises, sustainable and inclusive businesses, and digital entrepreneurs, in urban and especially in rural areas, including through the use of fintech and innovative tools, such as mobile banking, payment platforms and digitalized payments, and encourages them to adopt regulatory and supervisory frameworks that facilitate the safe and sound provision of financial services, increase access to information to protect consumers and promote financial literacy, particularly for women, young people and the most vulnerable people;

Encourages Member States to expand alternative sources of financing, including blended finance as well as impact investing, cooperatives and venture philanthropy, venture capital and angel investors for start-ups, and diversify the retail financial service system to include non-traditional providers of financial services, such as microcredit and microfinance, stresses the value of a sound regulatory framework in this regard, and encourages the provision of incentives to microfinance institutions that meet national standards for delivering sound financial services to the poor, with a particular emphasis on women;

Reiterates the need to strengthen women’s economic empowerment and resilience, and encourages Governments to facilitate women’s entrepreneurship by supporting them in accessing and mobilizing adequate financial resources and technologies, increasing their employment and market opportunities through capacity-building and targeted education and training and greater legal protections in the workplace, and improving access to financing and investment opportunities, tools of trade, business development and training, such as the Women in Business and eTrade for Women initiatives of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the SheTrades initiative of the International Trade Centre in order to increase trade and procurement, including public procurement for women’s enterprises;

Also reiterates the need for the promotion and advancement of women in labour markets, including through policies and programmes aimed at the elimination of structural barriers and stereotypes that women of all ages face in the transition from school to work, and the need to address challenges faced by women returning from care-related career breaks and by older women, by providing access to technical and vocational skills training, as well as access to science, technology, engineering and mathematics training, entrepreneurship development and job-matching, fostering women’s empowerment and enabling their full, equal, effective and meaningful participation and leadership and addressing the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and barriers that they face, including violence, and the unequal distribution of unpaid care and work, and promoting their participation in relevant decision-making processes;

Highlights the importance of developing and implementing policies and programmes to support women’s entrepreneurship, in particular opportunities for new women entrepreneurs and those that lead to business expansion for existing women-owned micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises, and encourages Governments to increase investments in women-owned companies and businesses, to reduce unnecessary administrative barriers in the regulatory environment, removing restrictions that deter women from engaging in business activities, and to create a climate that is conducive to increasing the number of women entrepreneurs and the size of their businesses by providing them with training and advisory services in business, access to finance, administration and information and communications technology, facilitating networking and information-sharing and increasing their participation on advisory boards and in other forums so as to enable them to contribute to the formulation and review of policies and programmes being developed, in particular by financial institutions;

Recognizes that social entrepreneurs, including Indigenous Peoples, and local communities, are agents of change who can drive innovative, economic, social and environmental solutions and create alternative sustainable models of production, finance and consumption to respond to social, economic and environmental issues, while generating value for their community and stakeholders, including the social and solidarity economy, which can play a role in fostering patterns of development, and also recognizes the need to implement policies and programmes aimed at supporting these entrepreneurs, and encourages Governments to set up an environment conducive to social and environmental innovation;

Also recognizes that harnessing entrepreneurial talents among all young people is vital for increasing productive capacities, developing new forms of entrepreneurship focused on information and communications technology, big data, digitization, smart cities and creating start-ups, and generating full and productive employment and decent work and inclusive economic growth, and encourages Member States to integrate youth entrepreneurship strategies and innovative programmes into their national policies, create a nurturing environment for the full realization of the rights and capabilities of all young people, and increase investment in micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises, including through impact investment favouring the poorest and most vulnerable, entrepreneurial education, youth capacity-building and information and communications technology;

Encourages Governments and all sectors of society to take sustainable measures to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for persons with disabilities, on an equal basis and without discrimination on the basis of gender and disability, including by promoting access to inclusive education systems, skills development, including technical, vocational and entrepreneurial training throughout the life cycle, in order to enable persons with disabilities to attain and maintain maximum independence, notes that further efforts are needed to increase awareness of the ability of persons with disabilities to innovate and contribute to the achievement of sustainable development through entrepreneurship, and in this regard calls upon all stakeholders to establish research on policy support for entrepreneurs with disabilities and collect data in order to develop or improve programmes, taking into account their capabilities, skills, socioeconomic status and other personal characteristics;

Stresses the need to enhance the alignment of policies, strategies and initiatives for entrepreneurship, including social entrepreneurship, with the 2030 Agenda, and emphasizes that these should prioritize those in vulnerable situations, who have the greatest needs, necessity entrepreneurs, including women and young entrepreneurs, and incentivize the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, adaptation to flexible work environments, including remote work, digitalization, innovation to access alternative markets and novel financing mechanisms, and the collection of high-quality, reliable and comparable data, while ensuring an optimal regulatory environment for entrepreneurs to start and scale up their businesses;

Highlights the importance of calibrating and differentiating between various types of entrepreneurs, in particular necessity and opportunity entrepreneurs, in line with their relative importance in the economy, in the design and implementation of policies and strategies, initiatives and support programmes, including for responding to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, including by employing specific measures targeting the vulnerable and most affected entrepreneurs, mobilizing resources, reinforcing local support networks and prioritizing initiatives and programmes aimed at increasing productivity, access to support measures and formalization;

Encourages all stakeholders, in particular women and young entrepreneurs, to apply their creativity and innovation to solving sustainable development challenges, and emphasizes that local innovation and entrepreneurship systems need to be able to fully participate in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals, and that concerted efforts are needed to ensure the participation of all;

Acknowledges the importance of adopting innovative and sustainable agriculture and food systems that will contribute to the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems, and help to end hunger, malnutrition and poverty in all its forms and dimensions, by harnessing entrepreneurship and innovation in the field of sustainable agriculture, food technology and agrifood technology;

Recognizes the potential of entrepreneurship in promoting the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, including through capacity-building and support to developing countries in water- and sanitation-related activities and programmes, including water harvesting, environmentally sustainable desalination technologies, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies;

Also recognizes the contribution urbanization makes to the acceleration of digitalization, the adoption of new technologies, innovation and information-sharing within cities, thereby encouraging entrepreneurship and job creation, and the contribution micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises make to solve societal problems in cities, and encourages Member States to adopt a multi-stakeholder approach towards urban collaborative economy planning for the delivery of the 2030 Agenda;

Underlines that sustainable entrepreneurship contributes to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 12, and invites Member States, relevant organizations and networks to cooperate in sharing and discussing best practices regarding relevant product information along value chains, including in the context of the circular economy, as a contribution to achieving sustainable consumption and production, in line with domestic and international law;

Recognizes that democratic political institutions, transparent and accountable public and private entities, effective anti-corruption measures and responsible corporate governance are key conditions for making market economies and enterprises more responsive to the values and long-term goals of society;

Encourages Member States to strengthen and foster investment in research and development and innovation centres, with an emphasis on multilateralism and international collaborations in creating innovative solutions to global challenges, to strengthen their business environment, while encouraging the participation of underrepresented communities, and to promote the involvement of academia and the business and financial sectors in the development of an enabling and inclusive business environment, and invites the international community to support those efforts including through South-South and triangular cooperation initiatives;

Stresses the importance of indicators that can be used to formulate targeted entrepreneurship policies and measure their impact on the Sustainable Development Goals, and in this regard encourages Member States, in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders, to further identify and develop indicators at the national and regional levels, as appropriate;

Calls upon all stakeholders to implement the present resolution as a means to deliver the comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centred set of universal and transformative Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda, in which the dignity of the human person is fundamental, the Goals and targets are met for all nations and peoples and for all segments of society, no one is left behind and we endeavour to reach the furthest behind first;

Calls upon the relevant organizations and bodies of the United Nations system to further recognize and integrate entrepreneurship in its various forms into their policies, programmes and reports, as appropriate, and invites the United Nations system, and in particular the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, to continue to provide support to and assist Member States, at their request, to identify, formulate, implement and assess coherent policy measures on entrepreneurship and the promotion of micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises;

Decides to continue to consider, as appropriate, the contribution of entrepreneurship to sustainable development in the follow-up and review framework of the 2030 Agenda;

Requests the Secretary-General, in collaboration with the secretariat of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, to submit to the General Assembly at its eighty-first session a report on the implementation of the present resolution, and decides to include in the provisional agenda of its eighty-first session the item entitled “Sustainable development”, unless otherwise agreed.

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