The African Development Bank, through its entrepreneurship support initiative for North Africa known as EInA (Entrepreneurship, Innovations, and Advice), organized a regional technical workshop on operational innovations in Cairo from 12 to 13 February 2024. The workshop aimed to enhance the design of public support programs for entrepreneurship and micro, small, and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs).
Co-sponsored by the British embassy, the workshop brought together delegations from the Ministries of Employment, Finance, the Economy, and Planning of Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, along with representatives from donors, the private sector, academia, and international experts.
The participating countries acknowledged the potential for creating high-quality jobs through promoting entrepreneurship and MSME development. They emphasized the importance of adopting operational innovations, fostering cooperation, conducting rigorous impact assessments, assessing cost-benefit ratios of programs, enhancing public-private partnerships, and coordinating activities among development partners. As a result, various opportunities for technical assistance and institutional capacity-building with support from EInA were identified.
Rania A. Al-Mashat, the Egyptian Minister of International Cooperation, affirmed that the workshop underscored the significance of the EInA initiative in shaping innovative entrepreneurship policies and programs in North Africa.
Malinne Blomberg, Deputy Director General of the African Development Bank for North Africa, highlighted the importance of partnerships in implementing operational innovations developed by EInA. She expressed gratitude to the Tunisian authorities for offering to host the next EInA meeting on operational innovations.
The workshop facilitated reflection and experience-sharing to develop an approach aimed at facilitating the adoption of innovations outlined in the Rabat Declaration, which includes entrepreneur profile surveys, a regulatory framework to integrate MSMEs into the formal sector, and impact investing funds for entrepreneurship and employment.
The workshop aligns with the Rabat Declaration, a political manifesto prepared by the three North African countries and development partners in June 2022. This declaration identifies common issues with existing entrepreneurship and MSME support programs and proposes seven operational innovations to address them.
Launched in 2020 with the support of the African Development Bank and bilateral partners, the EInA initiative aims to design and promote operational innovations to drive programs and policies supporting entrepreneurship.
