With its capacity for innovation and leadership, Latin America's youth holds one of the keys to future development of local economies. However, youth programs to promote entrepreneurial behaviors and teach business skills aren't readily available in all the countries of the region. To address this, academics and practitioners are joining forces to build a regional curriculum for entrepreneurial education.

Coordinated by the Young Americas Business Trust, the World Bank Institute and GDLN LAC, working groups have been meeting via videoconference to define best practice in entrepreneurial education by examining local programs under implementation and gaining knowledge about the Action Learning approach. As a next step, they are determining each group's forte to begin to build this multi-country collaboration in course development. The final product will be a training of trainers in an entrepreneurial curriculum that can be implemented locally. Based on discussions so far, participants have decided that the course should be relevant to different ethnic and cultural backgrounds as well as both rural and urban environments.

For more information regarding the MSME Youth Entrepreunership Initiative, please contact Bari Rabin (brabin@worldbank.org).