Project Objective & Brief Description: |
The development goal of the project is to improve conditions for businesses by enhancing dialogue and partnership between business and the state in private enterprise promotion.
The main project objectives are as follows:
1. Improve expertise of the business community in elaborating and promoting legal and policy proposals affecting the state of the business and regulatory environment;
2. Increase transparency of the decision and rule-making processes affecting the private sector;
3. Improve monitoring of small business trends in Belarus and increase public awareness of its role and contribution to socio-economic development.
The Republican Fund for Promoting Enterprise Development (the executive arm of the Council for Enterprise Development) implements the project. The United Nations Development Programme and the Republican Fund for Promoting Enterprise Development allocated respectively USD 180,000 and USD 20,000 for the project implementation.
The project is comprised of 2 components.
The aim of the first component is to strengthen the expertise of the business community and to increase its options for participating in the decision making process. It includes:
1. Establishing and facilitating the work of analytical and expert panels consisting of members of the business community, government agencies, R&D institutions and international organizations, including the World Bank, IFC, EBRD. These panels will provide comments, proposals and reactions to draft legislation on critical aspects of small business development and also conduct research concerning business environment.
2. Study of cooperation and subcontracting practices among small and large firms from different countries; assess and identify opportunities to implement such practices in Belarus.
3. Promotion of partnership between the Parliament and local authorities on matters related small business support (organization of working group meetings, seminars and other events on project’s proposals and initiatives).
Activities of the second component include:
1. Development of a methodology for the ongoing comprehensive monitoring of small business development in Belarus.
2. Production (creation), publication and dissemination of annual newsletters and generation of media coverage on the situation of small business, its contribution to socio-economic development, and support available to SMEs from the state and technical assistance programs. |
