How do you reduce poverty? Create jobs? Develop innovative new products and industries? One of the most important ways is to support entrepreneurs, start-ups and small businesses. If you think that small companies and start-ups can change the world, you’re not alone.

SEE MORE: Michael Dell’s prescription for boosting jobs around the world.

In September, the United Nations adopted a set of “Sustainable Development Goals,” priorities for the next 15 years. It’s sort of a global “to do list.” High on that list was Goal No. 8 — a commitment to develop policies that promote economic growth and full employment, including those policies that support entrepreneurs and the growth of small and medium-size businesses.

“Now we have to do it,” said Elizabeth Gore, former Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) for the United Nations Foundation and now EIR for Dell. “We have to get countries to focus on the policy recommendations and start implementing them.”