Evaluating Enterprise Policy Interventions in Africa: A Critical Review of Ghanaian Small Business Support Services

Abstract

Enterprise policies play a central role in economic development across frica, but more effective, evidence‐based policy evaluation is required to inform future interventions. The paper makes two contributions: (1) to filling this gap in our understanding and (2) to developing more rigorous and appropriate evaluation methodologies. The issues are examined through an empirical study into nonuse of small business support services in hana. Survey evidence from 253 owner–managers is complemented by interviews with owner–managers and service providers. The paper concludes that policy evaluation in ub‐aharan frica would benefit from multimethod approaches to address limitations in official data sets and to facilitate more in‐depth understanding.