You are Mariana Quiroga, Director-General of the National Entrepreneurship & Innovation Office (ONEI) of the Republic of Aurelia. A presidential directive asks you to raise two numbers at once on a fixed budget with no borrowing, and the plan is due at the Finance Ministry on 30 June. Before a single peso is allocated, you have to say what kind of entrepreneurship the country has.
The situation
Aurelia is a middle-income Latin American economy: 34 million people, GDP per capita of about AUP 210,000, small firms and a large informal sector. The directive of 12 May sets two targets: the early-stage entrepreneurial activity rate (TEA), today 14% of working-age adults, and the share of new ventures whose founders intend significant job creation, today 8%. The money is ONEI's discretionary budget, AUP 1,800 million, with no new borrowing. If the plan is late, the fiscal cycle is missed and the 1,800 million with it.
The indicators have barely moved in four years. 62% of early-stage activity is necessity-driven, started by people who cannot find a job. Only 42% of the firms formed three years ago are still trading, only 31% of businesses are on the register, and youth unemployment is 19%. Two of the last three governments promised an entrepreneurship strategy and neither delivered one on time.
Your four directors read the same page four ways, and outside the office there is no agreement either. Finance Minister Elías Bonilla will read the costing before the strategy. Deputies from the industrial provinces want visible firms and jobs this year and already call accelerator money "cash for the capital's tech elite". A regional development bank that co-finances two programmes wants to know where the scalable, exporting firms will come from.