The meeting, in which the Regional Development Fund of Western Macedonia participated, took place in Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina,1 and 2 October 2019, and hosted by SERDA, the Sarajevo Economic District Development Agency.
The first day was held test the support service (decision support) for the business clusters and business support organizations with the aim of helping the members of these organizations gain access to funding for investment actions. This assistance will be implemented in two stages: 1) implementation of training courses in clusters and business support organizations which 2) will in turn provide the service to a selected number of companies. The provision of the service is open to all small and medium-sized enterprises that respond to a call for expressions of interest, which will be posted on the website of each project partner, during November 2019.
The meeting also included a report on testing the capacity building tool on public authorities to improve the knowledge of the financing of innovation in the green sectors which will be carried out through an online application. The training program will be organized into seven modules of 15 minutes each and can be used as a stand-alone training material or in conjunction with a manual. The target group of the course is staff working in regional public authorities in the MED space, including policy makers, managers, technicians (e.g. legal, financial, innovation experts, etc.) who are familiar with public support programs for SMEs. Each partner will include as many trainees as possible.
The second day was dedicated to a meeting steering committee, in order to discuss the financial and administrative activities related to the project.
Descriptionof the project
The corporate scheme of the finMED project, consisting of 15 partners, including regions, groups and business support organizations, knowledge providers and development organizations, from 9 different countries, join forces to improve knowledge and provide instruments to both public and private actors, with the aim of improved access to finance.
The finMED project is the only Integrated Project belonging to the Green Development Community of the MED Programme, which will study, test, transfer and exploit concrete solutions to sustain the financing of innovation in the green sectors. It integrates efforts, practices and actions between different actors, reinforcing the idea that green growth is a profitable sustainable strategy for the future of citizens, the private sector, investors and financiers and must be sustained with appropriate financing practices.
The project has a duration of 48 months (February 2018 – January 2022) and a total budget of 4,3 million euros.
