Guatemala Entrepreneurship Development Initiative (GEDI)

The Guatemala Entrepreneurship Development Initiative (GEDI) is a three-year initiative implemented by the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) to strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem for small and growing businesses in communities affected by migration. 

GEDI fosters a more robust entrepreneurial ecosystem to bring economic prosperity to communities heavily affected by migration within Guatemala. By helping ventures overcome challenges to access for business advisory services, incubation or acceleration programs, and access to finance and markets, GEDI builds the entrepreneur support system so that ventures can increase their revenue, employment, and develop new goods and services that meet these community needs. This increased prosperity and diversified economic opportunity increases the availability of local economic opportunities, helping people remain invested in their communities.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC APPROACH

GEDI develops a coordinated set of expanded business support services available to entrepreneurs, particularly to businesses run by, employing, or serving the needs of women and indigenous people, rural communities, or youth education in regions with high levels of irregular migration.

CONTEXT AND CHALLENGES

Research on small and growing businesses (SGBs) shows that they and entrepreneurs create the greatest proportion of economic impact, such as job creation and productive output. These outcomes derive from a small percentage of companies that reach substantial scale. SGBs and social entrepreneurs in Guatemala cite that financing is scarce. Specifically, entrepreneurs and SGBs lack formal connections to investors. In addition, these businesses lack access to specialized consulting, professional, legal, accounting, and other business development services.

APPROACH AND RESULTS

The project includes three main components:

• Local ecosystem engagement - to increase the level of engagement among ANDE members and other key stakeholders to design new activities to help these organizations understand the intersections of their work supporting SGBs and how they can address the needs of communities affected by irregular migration.
• Coalition building - to assemble a coalition of implementing partners to execute core activities identified as needs and leverage the matching contributions of the private sector partners.
• Regranting facility with open calls for proposals to identify and financially support innovative solutions to remaining ecosystem gaps that are identified by local stakeholders.

Entrepreneurial Ecosystems

Entrepreneurial ecosystems are complex networks of cultural, political, and economic institutions that enable entrepreneurs to start, sustain, and scale a new business. The functioning of that system is often facilitated by activity hubs such as accelerator programs or co-working spaces where a broad range of actors interact with entrepreneurs and with each other, making it easier for businesses to identify the right resources for the business challenges they face.  Guatemala is a growing ecosystem, which has begun its expansion outside the big cities, but the supply of capacity development and financing is still dominated by urban centers. This project will address these deficits by coordinating a core set of activities among partners recruited from the ANDE network with an established local footprint to expand existing services or develop new ones that meet the needs of these overlooked entrepreneurs. 

EXPECTED RESULTS

• Provide expanded businesses support services to at least 500 growth-oriented entrepreneurs. 
• Facilitate at least $10M of investment into beneficiary businesses during the initial three years.
• Coordinate deployment of $32M USD in leveraged private sector resources, both grant and investment capital, to aligned programs and businesses.