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Développement économique et création locale d’emplois (LEED)

Seminar on "Promoting SME Innovation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and other South-East European Countries", Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 19 October 2005

 

Entrepreneurship is one of the most important drivers of local economic development.  New firm formation and the activities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) help drive job creation and economic growth through accelerating innovation and promoting the full use of human, financial and other resources. The vitality of the new and small firm sector is therefore a major determinant of local competitiveness, whilst how local economies perform in this respect in turn influences national economic performance.

Over the past 20 years the OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Programme has provided a forum for national and local governments and development agencies to assess and exchange information on entrepreneurship policy development at local level.  Since 2004, through its Trento Centre for Local Development, the LEED Programme has extended its reach to enable agents in member and non-member countries in central, east and south-east Europe to join this forum for information exchange and problem solving in local development policies.  The Central European Initiative (CEI) has been a key partner on these activities.

In 2005, LEED Trento Centre was organising a series of capacity building seminars in South-East Europe to assess how to face key challenges in the area of entrepreneurship policy development.  These seminars were a follow-up of the LEED Trento Centre capacity building seminar on entrepreneurship held on 13-17 December 2004 in Trento. 

This seminar in Bosnia and Herzegovina continued the work on the case studies identified during the Trento seminar and will further explore the theme of Promoting SME Innovation. It is part of the activities of the joint OECD- Central European Initiative Local Development Network (LDN).  This event was organised in collaboration with Sub-department for Strategy and Economy in Government District Brčko and in co-operation with the Central European Initiative.  It aimed to: 

  • analyse barriers to SME innovation and the policy instruments that can be used to overcome these barriers, using evidence from OECD countries.  
  • analyse what are the instruments and approaches available to promote the introduction of new and upgraded products and services offered by SMEs to their clients and the potential for introduction of such initiatives in South East Europe.
  • analyse what policy initiatives can be developed to promote the introduction of new and upgraded production methods, marketing approaches, distribution arrangements, management practices and work organisation. 

It also discussed the potential for introduction of such initiatives in South-East Europe and the potential for introduction of such initiatives in South-East Europe.

For further information, please contact Ms. Alessandra Proto

Download the draft programme