According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 40% of youth indicate an interest in self-employment and entrepreneurship. However, only 4.1% of youth in employment in the European Union were self-employed in 2016 – which is one third of the proportion of all adults.

Young entrepreneurs and those interested in starting a business face a number of barriers, such as lack of awareness of potential for entrepreneurship, limited education and training on how to nurture entrepreneurial attitudes and skills, and lack of prior knowledge on how to organise and sustain a successful entrepreneurship performance.

The Missing Entrepreneurs 2017 Policies for Inclusive Entrepreneurship © OECD/European Union 2017.

The European initiative Stars4SD aims at addressing these barriers by developing educational material about the importance, aims and objectives of the UN’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for youth entrepreneurs and business, as well as entrepreneurship coaching on five SDGs; namely provide quality education to youth entrepreneurs, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, and responsible consumption and production.

By providing educational material,developing methodology and a guidance of the necessary steps business should take to meet SDGs and creating a network, an award system and a peer review process,

Stars4SD will provide the necessary, but lacking, training to young entrepreneurs and will give them incentives to meet the SDGs.