Low-carbon green growth opportunities for SMEs

The potential of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for employment creation and poverty reduction is well recognised. At the same time, governments and international communities are advocating the need for greener, low-carbon growth that preserves a sound environment and also contributes to poverty reduction. Against this background, supporting SMEs to diffuse low-carbon technologies will be one of the promising means to drive greener growth that contributes to poverty reduction and employment creation. This paper analyses such support for SMEs by development agencies. I t finds that most of the climate-targeted development assistance is focused on ‘hardware’ such as infrastructures and urban planning, and far less on the ‘software’ such as skills development and entrepreneurship support.