On 7 March in Minsk, the OECD is organising the first working group to monitor the implementation of the Business Development Services policy roadmap and to share good practice on developing support programmes for high-growth enterprises in Belarus.
The working group is organised under the ‘EU4Business: From Policies to Action’ project implemented by the OECD across the Eastern Partnership region.
Belarus is in the process of upgrading its policies to create a favourable environment for entrepreneurship and the institutional framework to support small and medium-sized enterprises. In this context, the government has recently adopted the national SME Promotion Strategy for the period until 2030, with the objective to encourage the growth of the SME sector, increase its competitiveness, create new jobs and raise living standards.
In 2016, the OECD supported the Ministry of Economy of Belarus with a policy roadmap to strengthen SME capabilities through Business Development Services (BDS), which was peer reviewed at the OECD Eurasia Competitiveness Roundtable. Policy recommendations focused on three areas: building the institutional framework for delivery of BDS, unlocking latent demand and promoting market-oriented supply of BDS.
This meeting will be chaired by Deputy Minister of Economy Dmitry Matusevich and held at the Academy of Public Administration in Minsk.
In Belarus, the ‘EU4Business: From Policies to Action’ project has a twofold objective: 1) to monitor progress in the implementation of a policy roadmap to strengthen SME capabilities through improved Business Development Services for SMEs, and 2) to build institutional capacity in Belarus to design support programmes for high-growth enterprises.
In order to meet this objective, the project will focus on the following activities:
- Strengthen public-private dialogue through Working Group meetings with international experts, Belarusian stakeholders and OECD;
- Provide support in monitoring the implementation of a policy roadmap to improve BDS for SMEs;
- Organise capacity building sessions with international experts to design support programmes for SMEs.
The main beneficiaries of this project are the Ministry of Economy, the Belarusian Fund for Financial Support for Entrepreneurs, the Development Bank of Belarus, and other SME stakeholders involved in the implementation and monitoring of the policy roadmap.
Date
07/03/19, 10:00-12:45
