In the framework of the KEP project “Monitoring SME Policy implementation in the Western Balkans” co-financed by the CEI Fund at the EBRD, entirely supported by Italy, a workshop was organised in Trento on 3-4 July 2013 at the premises of the OECD LEED Trento Centre for Local Development.
Since 2006, through the Italy- sponsored CEI Fund at EBRD, the CEI has been supporting the OECD in its efforts towards fostering the SME sector in the Western Balkans. This important cooperation was also underlined during the last CEI Steering Committee meeting in April 2013 when Amb. Giovanni Caracciolo di Vietri signed a grant agreement with the OECD for the implementation of the project “Competitiveness and New Industrial Policy: Building capacities for diagnosis, design and implementation”. So far, the CEI Fund at the EBRD has co-financed seven projects within the CEI Know-how Exchange Programme (KEP) for a total CEI contribution amounting to more than 220,000 EUR and a total project value of more than 710,000 EUR.
The aim of the Trento Workshop was to upgrade the SME Policy Index methodology for an improved and more accurate assessment of policies. The Workshop brought together National SBA Coordinators and SME policy experts from the Western Balkans, Turkey and Eastern Partner Countries.
Developed by the OECD in 2006, the SME Policy Index is a policy monitoring and benchmarking tool to monitor the design and implementation of national policies to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Western Balkans. Since 2006 it has been applied six times to a total of 33 economies in the Eastern Partnership region, North-African and the Middle East regions, the ASEAN region and the Western Balkans and Turkey. The monitoring methodology is structured around the European Small Business Act (SBA), a wide-ranging set of pro-enterprise measures designed to guide the design and implementation of SME policies in the European Union.
Four workshop sessions were dedicated to the analysis of key elements to enhance the current methodology such as a better assessment of policy strategies as key policy frameworks, the analysis of policy monitoring and impact evaluation tools, leveraging data and statistics and company surveys, and measuring the political economy of reform. A separate session examined how the monitoring methodology could be leveraged to monitor policy reforms related to the Enterprise Development and Innovation Facility. Lastly, as an outcome of the project “Monitoring SME Policy implementation in the Western Balkans”, three case studies of SME policy initiatives from Montenegro and Macedonia were presented.
