Workforce and Higher Access to Markets
Activities And Approaches
The project strengthens high-growth, exporting, and export-ready small and medium enterprises to create jobs. It centers on a grants program that requires cost-share from grantees. Grants fall under the following categories:
Improve the workforce
Grants to recruit or retrain the labor force with adequate skills, for example, support to secondary schools to acquire proper equipment for manufacturing training.
Increase market access
Support to companies in the target sectors to identify and access new customers and markets, for example, through grants to prepare for and attend major regional and international trade fairs.
Improve product quality
Support to SMEs to introduce quality management systems, make technology upgrades, and receive necessary certifications required by target markets.
Summary
Bosnia-Herzegovina boasts a growing number of small and medium enterprises that are adapting practices to meet the quality expectations of sophisticated European customers, yet the economy is still not generating enough jobs. Unemployment, especially among young people, is high. This project stimulates job creation by advancing Bosnia’s trade integration with the EU and regional markets. It works primarily in the wood processing, metal processing, and show and textile sectors.
Results
- ~30% increase in exports at businesses receiving assistance
- ~1500 new jobs created
- 50% of all new jobs go to youth
Funder: USAID through the Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance
Project Duration: 2017-2020
Award: $3.8 million
Impact
