On request of the EU Delegation to Ukraine and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development the Programme “EU4Business: SME Competitiveness and Internationalisation” is adjusting its operational activity to support the resilience of Ukrainian business to the current crisis.
“Because of the armed aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the EU4Business Programme has repurposed its regular activities in favour of urgently needed support for the Programme`s beneficiaries, mainly bringing direct support to SMEs affected by war. In these difficult times, when a large number of enterprises have to scale back, relocate or even cease their operations, it is critical to support SMEs to survive under radically different market conditions, including disrupted supply chains, internal displacement of persons and businesses, as well as destruction of premises” – commented Chloe Allio, Head of Section "Economic Cooperation, Energy, Infrastructure and Environment" of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine.
In 2022, the Program will focus on the following emergency assistance packages for SMEs:
- Microgrants aimed at internally displaced businesses (IDBs) and other companies heavily affected by the war to continue operations and resume production lines.
- Consultancy support, provided by local and international experts in private sector development in fragile contexts, to help businesses re-orient business processes and strengthen their resilience.
- Procurement of equipment for the programme partners, including SMEs, as needed to provide resources for their daily work and relaunching production. This includes IT hardware for digitalisation of documentation, business processes, backups and transition to cloud solutions; IT solutions for protecting online business processes, data protection, particularly against cyber-attacks; direct support for SMEs, Internally Displaced Businesses (IDBs), re-start of businesses via the partners.
The support measures will be unrolled primarily in the western and central parts of Ukraine with increased concentration of businesses looking to strengthen wartime resilience to be able to continue economic activities and serve the basic needs of citizens..
“In the context of war with unstable supply chains, fluctuating markets, riskier legal and contractual preconditions, enterprises require quick assistance to re-establish themselves and survive. The EU4Business Programme will rely on its established partner networks of business support organisations, local economic development agencies, regional chambers of commerce, business clusters, and “Diia.Business” centres to reach out to the most of Ukraine’s business community” comments Armin Hofmann, Programme Director of “EU4Business: SME Competitiveness and Internationalisation”.
Resilience support activities are due to start already this month. Details are coming soon, so please follow the Programme`s page on Facebook.
For additional information, please contact the project team of “EU4Business: SME Competitiveness and Internationalisation” via eu4business.ukraine@giz.de
Background information: The “EU4Business: SME Competitiveness and Internationalisation” programme is co-financed by the European Union and the German Government. It is implemented by the German Federal Company “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH”. The programme aims to create better conditions for the development of Ukrainian small and medium-sized enterprises and support innovation and export promotion, resulting in sustainable and equitable economic growth.
EU4Business is an umbrella initiative that includes all EU support to SME growth by improving access to finance and business development services, and by promoting better business regulation.
