The Big Business of Small Enterprises: Evaluation of the World Bank Group Experience with Targeted Support to Small and Medium-Size Enterprises, 2006-12

The World Bank Group promotes small and medium enterprise (SME) growth through both systemic and targeted interventions. Targeting means focusing benefits on one size-class of firms to the exclusion of others. Targeted support for SMEs is a big business for the World Bank Group, averaging around $3 billion a year in commitments, expenditures, and gross exposure over the 2006–12 period. In the context of broader reforms, such targeted support can be a powerful tool. Targeting SMEs is not an ...