Policy Papers
The potential of business support centers from the perspective of social entrepreneurship development in Belarus
This study allowed us to conduct a preliminary assessment of the needs of social entrepreneurs in Belarus in the context of information and consulting services and to determine the capabilities of existing business support centers in meeting such needs. The basic needs were highlighted: consultations in narrow areas of law and accounting; getting consultations for free or with some preferences; getting comprehensive information on the possibilities of obtaining all benefits and preferences in the context of a particular business.
In general, the potential of the centers in the development of certain types of business is low; their motivation to expand the range of services is limited; they provide only basic consultations on a free basis. Due to insufficient external support and limited funding existing centers as well as business incubators generally tend to do business rather than run business and educational initiatives.
We introduced the classification of existing centers taking into account the profile of the services provided: educational, consulting, highly specialized, diversified and non-core centers. All of them have different potential in their own development as well as in the implementation of entrepreneurship development initiatives, including social entrepreneurship.
The Policy Paper is available only in Russian.