Yesterday, in the Brčko District of BiH, the draft of the updated Action Plan for SME Innovation was presented, which was prepared with the expert support of Frank Waeltring (https://www.mesopartner.com), engaged by GIZ within the project “Innovations and Digitization in SMEs” (https://eu4digitalsme.ba) and the Eda team within the project “SBA in BiH2EU”.
Along with the main characteristics of the previous plan for the period 2021-2023 and the updated version for the period 2024-2027, a significant part of the presentation and discussion was focused on the reasons why there was no visible progress in the implementation of the previous version of the plan. After a very open and critical discussion by participants from public and private sectors, it can be said that there was general consensus regarding the reasons for failure (inertia in providing inadequate financial support to enterprises instead of moving to targeted support, insufficient capacities of institutions and lack of cooperation and networking with organizations from the immediate environment). Also, it was confirmed that the updated action plan sufficiently addresses these reasons and new circumstances, and creates planning assumptions for more successful implementation in the future.
The meeting was excellently organized by the representatives of the Government of the Brčko District of BiH. About 30 representatives from the public, private, and non-governmental sectors participated. The mayor of the Brčko District of BiH, Dr. Zijad Nišić, also participated in most of the meeting.
Support in the creation of action plans for SME innovation represents an excellent example of cooperation between the “Innovations and Digitization in SMEs” and “SBA in BiH2EU” projects, i.e., the teams of GIZ and Ede. This cooperation also included support in the creation of the Action Plan for Innovation in SMEs in the Republic of Srpska 2024-2027, which was adopted on February 1st this year.
The project “Advanced Implementation of the Small Business Act in BiH2EU – SBA in BiH2EU,” is implemented by Eda in cooperation with the Sarajevo Regional Development Agency SERDA and funded by Sweden.
