Turkey

On 6 February 2023, two large earthquakes with magnitudes of 7.6 and 7.7 hit central and southern Türkiye and northern Syria resulting in widespread damage and fatalities in the region and leaving 3.3 million displaced. This note – prepared for a workshop to support the affected city of Gaziantep in March 2023 - provides an overview of the affected regions, and key issues and recommendations to support the recovery, based on international experience. It highlights that a plan should be made to support displaced residents for an extended period, identify high-risk families, train the workforce needed for the reconstruction effort, strengthen governance processes to protect recovery funds, coordinate reconstruction efforts across levels of government and with international donors, and engage communities in ambitious plans to improve infrastructure going forward.

The COVID-19 crisis has had a profound impact on SME access to finance. In particular, the sudden drop in revenues created acute liquidity shortages, threatening the survival of many viable businesses. The report documents an increase in demand for bank lending in the first half of 2020, and a steady supply of credit thanks to government interventions. On the other hand, other sources of finance declined, in particular early-stage equity. This paper, a special edition of Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs, focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on SME access to finance, along with government policy responses. It reveals that the pre-crisis financing environment was broadly favourable for SMEs and entrepreneurs, who benefited from low interest rates, loose credit standards and an increasingly diverse offer of financing instruments. It documents the unprecedented scope and scale of the policy responses undertaken by governments world-wide, and details their key characteristics, and outlines the principal issues and policy challenges for the next phases of the pandemic, such as the over-indebtedness of SMEs and the need to continue to foster a diverse range of financing instruments for SMEs.

This report on Turkey takes a case study approach, analysing the management and implementation of policies in the provinces of Kocaeli and Trabzon. It provides a comparative framework to understand the role of the local labour market policy in matching people to jobs, engaging employers in skills development activities, as well as fostering new growth and economic development opportunities. It includes practical policy examples of actions taken in Turkey to help workers find better quality jobs, while also stimulating productivity and inclusion.