U.S. encouragement of existing small businesses and future start-ups in the Middle East and North Africa will improve conditions and relations

By Leonard A. Schlesinger and Shahid A. Ansari

The World Bank estimates that 100 million new jobs will be needed in the Middle East and North Africa over the next 10 years to keep the region’s unemployment rates—now as high as 13 percent for adults and twice as high for young people—from climbing even higher. To meet the needs of this region’s rapidly growing population and put it to work meeting the world’s needs, there is no surer route than entrepreneurship. That was the big takeaway at the first-ever Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship focused on the Muslim world, held at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington in late April.

Entrepreneurial energy has a ripple effect on communities—leading not only to new jobs, but to better services and improvements in the standard of living, giving more individuals a greater stake in the future.

The Obama Administration announced a series of positive but small steps to build partnerships with governments, universities, and businesses, including an e-Mentor Corps and investor fund partnerships. More ambitious actions are still needed, such as best-practices sharing on a much larger scale, global education opportunities, and youth entrepreneurship development.With so many great global challenges of our time, why single out entrepreneurship? There is simply no better tool at our disposal to transcend political and cultural divides and accelerate the forces needed to stimulate economic and social development.

Schlesinger is president and Ansari is provost of Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. Complete article at

http://www.businessweek.com/print/smallbiz/content/may2010/sb20100511_237169.htm