Presented at the meeting of the Working Group on SME Policy, Entrepreneurship and Human Capital Development on 23-24 September 2014.

1. Implementation of the “Small Business Act” (SBA) for Europe in the
Mediterranean Middle East and North Africa
Main messages for policy makers from the 2014
assessment: Entrepreneurial learning and
Skills for enterprises
Mariavittoria Garlappi, Regional Coordinator for Entrepreneurship
23 September 2014, Paris
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2. Structure of the presentation
1. What is the ETF
2. The South Mediterranean labour market
3. Entrepreneurial learning and training for women
entrepreneurs: Findings and way forward
4. Skills for SMEs: Findings and way forward
5. ETF methodology to assess good practices
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3. WHAT IS THE ETF?
Agency of the European Union
Mission
To help transition and developing countries to harness the potential of
their human capital through the reform of education, training and
labour market systems in the context of the EU’s external relations
policy. Special focus on competitiveness and social cohesion
Main activities
Support to policy analysis and policy making and capacity building
Areas: Northern Africa and the Middle East, Western Balkans and
Turkey, Eastern Europe and Central Asia

4. The context: labour market
Weak (skilled) job creation in private sector and
saturation of jobs in public sector - business environment
not encouraging SME growth
Low employment and high unemployment rates:
especially of (highly educated) youth and women
(Graph 1-2)
Poor job-matching services: social networks are the
main tool to find (good) jobs, less recruitment on merit-based
competition
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5. Graph 1: Unemployment rates: total, female and 5

6. 6
Graph 2. Unemployment rate of total population and
higher educated by sex

7. Principle 1:
Entrepreneurial learning
Main findings and way forward:
A wealth of good practices exists (mostly project driven) (All countries) –
Need for scaling up to generate the systemic reform required to build the
next entrepreneurial and enterprising generation
Upper and post secondary are more advanced (thanks to direct links to
business) (MOR, TUN, EGY, PAL, LEB, IL)
A joined up policy framework to promote entrepreneurship in a LLL
perspective remains a challenge - Real partnership is needed between
education and industry ministries and with the business community and
civil society
Limited leadership by Education ministries to entrepreneurial learning
development

8. Training for women entrepreneurs
Main findings and way forward:
Similar picture to the above: wealth of training practices (All countries)–
underdeveloped enabling environment (policy, support structures,
dedicated financial support)
Need for stronger taylored advisory and mentoring services
Improve access for women (to education, credit, mentoring, coaching)
and
Develop role models and carry out specific training needs analysis
(focus on leadership, it skills ,….)

9. Principle 8.1: skills for enterprises
Main findings and way forward:
 Greater availability of training for SMEs exists (ALG, TUN, EGY, IL,
JOR) - Greater flexibility in timing, content and quality of training is needed
Countries are investing in supporting internationalisation of businesses -
Skills for trading within the region, EU and internationally are well
developed (All, ALG to a less extent)
Little systematic data on enterprise training - Which hampers policy
development
 Policy response to support skills development for SMEs start ups and
growth is weak
 Government and businesses need to work on this together - Maybe
focusing on sectors that are key to economies (ex. MOR) or more and
better use of new technologies to improve access (ex. IL)
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10. Graph 3: Percentage of firms identifying skills as
major constraint for business
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11. ETF Methodology to assess
good practices
•Why, from good practices to standard practices, from practitioners to
policy makers
•How: A good practice scorecard, levels and stars
•Key areas for critical review by fellow peers
o Training needs analysis
o Training design
o Training environment
o Monitoring, evaluation & improvement
o Sharing of good practice & implications for policy development
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12. ETF Methodology to assess
good practices
2014 good practitioner on Youth Entrepreneurship Training
Business Development Centre (Jordan)
o Entrepreneurship key competence for unemployed graduates
o Mentoring to support business ideas to business start-up
o Access to finance: brokerage services for young entrepreneurs & banks
o Creating scale: feeding project results back up to policy-making level