The MENA region national entrepreneurial framework conditions

The GEM model explicitly acknowledges that particular environmental factors (social, cultural, political and economic) are influential in creating unique business and entrepreneurial contexts. Annually, each economy participating in the GEM cycle surveys at least 36 key experts or informants. The National Experts Survey (NES) is similar to other surveys that capture expert judgments to evaluate specific national conditions. For example, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report and the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report use similar surveys to build their indices. However, the NES focuses only on the environmental features that are expected to have a significant impact on the entrepreneurial sector, captured in the nine Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions (EFCs) rather than on general economic factors. The nine EFCs are described in Table 1. Although the EFCs can be addressed at any stage of development, these conditions function best in economies with an underlying foundation of basic requirements and efficiency enhancers. For example, it is unlikely that government entrepreneurship programmes will be effective if the country provides inadequate health care and primary education to its population.