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Small businesses are well positioned to build resilience to climate change. They are embedded in communities and have exceptional ability to reach the world’s most vulnerable populations.

• Small businesses are the key to sustainable development and building resilient communities because nearly 60% of employment in developing countries rely on small businesses.
• In the developing world, many small businesses work in agriculture, which is especially vulnerable to climate change because of floods and droughts.

• If small businesses are more resilient, then the communities that rely on them are better able to recover from floods, storms, droughts and other extreme events.

Governments have practical, low-cost options for engaging small businesses to adapt to climate change.  This report outlines six steps decision-makers can use to select the policy options that will work for their business community.  The six steps are:

1. Engage stakeholders
2. Prioritize vulnerable sectors
3. Identify drivers to invest in adaptation
4. Identify barriers preventing investment in adaptation
5. Design interventions to catalyze MSE investment in adaptation
6. Implement and scale up 

The report also offers a menu of interventions that policy makers can choose from to help small businesses build resilience.  The menu includes, among others:

• Programs to provide businesses with relevant climate risk information
• Technical assistance and training on managing climate risk
• Regulatory and fiscal incentives to stimulate risk reduction
• Subsidies and tax relief
• Research and development or pilots on climate-related products and services
• Public spending on infrastructure
• Incentives or support for partnerships and cooperatives
• Public risk transfer or risk compensation instruments