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Projects
Private Sector Development Initiative for Southeastern Europe
Short Description:
Overall goal
The GDLN PSD Initiative for Southeastern Europe will promote and facilitate policy dialogue and provide knowledge sharing events covering a range of private sector development and reform issues for improved business environment in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro (and Kosovo). The program is intended to help officials and other stakeholders expand their knowledge and skill base through exposure to international best practice and the experience of other countries to address challenges to private sector development and impediments to growth. Video conferencing sessions will feature case studies of how other countries have faced certain issues and/or designed certain reforms. The programs will also offer opportunities for the donor community to learn about ongoing efforts in this area and identify areas for cooperation and joint initiatives to maximize impact and avoid duplication. The program will be divided into three parallel but simultaneous tracks:
" Improving the investment climate, focusing on legal and judicial reform, securing property rights, reducing 'red tape' and other bureaucratic constraints, and related issues;
" Addressing the barriers to the creation and growth of SMEs, including improving firm's access to finance and the role of government in supporting SME development;
" Addressing the revival of mono-industry regions and one-company towns found throughout the region via private sector growth focused on identifying the potential for the turnaround of the dominant industry and opportunities for enterprise restructuring and the creation of SMEs focused on other activities.
These three tracks can be viewed as three separate and coherent conference series. Participants will be able to attend all three tracks or only one or two. The full program will culminate with a Conference that will highlight both lessons learned and the reinforcing mechanisms between these three areas.