Private Sector Development in an Emerging World: Inclusive Policies and Strategies for the Formal and Informal Economy

This book explores the interactions between private sector development, public policies and societal institutions with a strong view on contributing to sustainable and inclusive development in emerging countries.

The private sector is often praised as an engine of economic growth. This belief has led to significant efforts to promote private sector development in emerging countries. Development agencies prioritize private sector development and national governments are following suit, resulting in often huge incentives to stimulate and attract private investment.

However, private sector development is not a panacea for sustainable and inclusive development as the past decades have clearly shown. Economic growth, societal development and environmental sustainability are often in a sharp conflict; and more often than not economic growth has failed to improve the lives of all citizens.

This book examines the role the state and the private sector should play to benefit from the dynamics of business development, while ensuring that these benefits are shared broadly without jeopardizing sustainability. The views presented differ in detail, but the analyses and case studies presented share common themes, namely that the relative roles of state and private sector of should be balanced and that this particular balance should be based on the context of each country in order to make the private-public sector interaction work for all people.

Dr. Diederik de Boer is an Associate Professor of Sustainable Business Development and Director of the Expert Centre for Emerging Economies of the Maastricht School of Management/ University of Maastricht. His research focus is on private sector development in emerging economies through issues related to value chains, CSR and industrial policy. He has led numerous projects in more than 40 countries in emerging economies. Before, he worked as a policy officer for the United Nations Development Program and the World Food Program.

Dr. Harald Sander is Associate Professor of Economics at MSM and a Professor of Economics and International Economics at TH Köln - University of Technology, Arts and Sciences, where he directs the Institute of Global Business and Society and holds the Jean Monnet Chair "Europe in the Global Economy", sponsored by the European Union (2014-17). His main research areas are economic integration, trade and industrial policies, and the macroeconomics of financial crises.

Dr. Katharina Friz works at the VDI Technology Center since 2023 as a consultant in research funding for the Federal Ministry of Research and Education. She completed her bachelor's degree in Economics (B. Sc.) at the University of Bremen in 2016. From 2017 to 2021, she worked as a research associate and PhD candidate at the Chair of Economics, esp. Innovation and Structural Economics at the University of Bremen and completed in 2019 a research stay at Jagellonen University in Poland. In 2022, she worked as an international project consultant at the Expert Centre for Emerging Economies at the Maastricht School of Management (MSM) and was involved in projects in Sudan and Burundi.

Antonella Anastasi is a Project Consultant for the Expert Centre on Emerging Economies (ECEE) at Maastricht School of Management (MSM). She attained an MBA at MSM with specialty in International Business and Sustainable Development in June 2020, and holds two Master degrees from LUMSA University in Rome (Italy), in the field of international cooperation and international relations. Since 2019, she is coordinating, managing and monitoring TVET and higher education programs in developing countries, such as Sierra Leone, Sudan and Burundi. Her research interests include emerging economies, renewable energies, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, inclusive development, global value chain.