The Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center proposes a five-year flagship research project: the Entrepreneurship Policy Initiative (EPI). The project’s aim is to monitor and benchmark how governments support entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and to foster entrepreneur-centric policy reforms in low- and middle-income countries.
At the core of EPI is the Entrepreneurship Policy Tracker (Tracker), a new global benchmarking tool designed to identify where progress is happening—and where action is needed. The Tracker will draw on innovative artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) to produce its indicators more efficiently, with reduced bias and manipulation risks and lower data collection costs. The Atlantic Council, working with MEG Inteligencia de Datos, will develop the AI systems to enhance real time monitoring and classification of entrepreneurs and SMEs-related regulations, creating entirely original indicators using public depository of laws and regulations. With public rankings, interactive dashboards, and year-over-year comparability, the Tracker will benchmark entrepreneurship policy environments across the globe to inform, inspire, and incentivize real policy action.
To translate data into reform, the EPI team will recruit a group of intellectual and financial partners through the Global Coalition for Entrepreneurship Policy (Coalition), which will include Regional Policy Labs, an annual Entrepreneurship Policy Summit, and a fellowship program for emerging reformers. The aim of these convening platforms is to bring policymakers, researchers, and reformers together to drive entrepreneur and SME-centric policy reform in developing countries.
Altogether, EPI provides the data, tools, and partnerships needed to foster durable and inclusive growth across the developing world.
