Locations
Strengthening small and medium enterprises business membership organizations project
Project summary:
The Project objective is to accelerate the development of the SME sector in Ukraine by strengthening the capacities of the BMOs, thus enabling more effective operation and the sustainability of these organizations in the medium to long term, better services to their members (SMEs) and reinforcement of public-private dialogue.
The Project is implemented by UNDP in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine and with the financial support of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs of Switzerland (SECO).
Project goals:
The Project is to design and deliver a tailored capacity development programmes to selected BMOs throughout Ukraine to help improve their institutional, organizational and financial capacities to represent interests of the private sector and facilitate a more active, responsive, professional and policy-oriented dialogue between public and private sectors.
The project is to increase the ability of BMOs to attract members, promote constructive cooperation with governmental structures and to contribute to policy development leading to SMEs sector growth. Increased membership of BMOs coupled with higher institutional effectiveness, resulting from the support received from the Project will contribute to the financial sustainability of BMOs and spur mobilization of the entrepreneurs, therefore strengthening the ‘collective voice’ of business.
Project components:
1. Strengthening the organizational capacity of BMOs and good governance
The project aims to provide capacity building support to help BMOs establish and maintain good governance principles, including adequate organizational structures. Special focus is on developing a mandate for BMOs, membership development, including members’ recruitment, retention and administration.
Expected results: Improved governance and sustainability in terms of mandate, organization, membership and financial resources.
2. Strengthening the service provision capacity of BMOs
The Project is to address the capacity of BMOS to deliver efficiently the services demanded by SMEs.
Expected results: The improved capacity of the SME BMOs to provide services will promote business development of their members as well as contribute to the financial sustainability of the SME membership organizations by generating additional income from the services provided to their members.
3. Strengthening advocacy and intermediary capacity of BMOs
The capacity of BMOs will be developed to identify and articulate common interests of members. BMOs will be trained to participate in a meaningful dialogue with the authorities, mediate between government and member interests, and self-regulate specific issues.
Expected results: Better capacity of SME membership organizations to represent their business interests, to provide inputs to various Government policies and to be a reliable partner for the Government in the development of the private sector and the broader economy.
4. Strengthening key governmental actors
The project aims to increase government’s capacity to constructively engage and open up the decision making process to the private sector through respective structures and processes.
Expected results: The government side is prepared to engage constructively in public-private dialogue, established frameworks to assess private sector proposals based on information sharing, dialogue and mediation competences.