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In the Western Balkans, Albania is witnessing remarkable economic growth propelled by foreign investment, infrastructure development, and a thriving tourism sector. Despite this positive trend, women-led businesses encounter uneven opportunities. As in many Western Balkans countries, women-led businesses in Albania tend to be smaller, concentrated in the services sector, and often constrained by factors such as limited networks and historical gender biases.

The final blog in this series inspired by the four take-away messages from USAID’s primer on private-sector engagement in fragile and conflict-affected situations demonstrates why going beyond financial support is essential to provide partners with the coaching, networking, and advocacy needed to succeed in particularly complex, fragile and conflict-affected environments. It draws on the experience of the Strengthening Livelihoods and Resilience Activity in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

This blog, the third in a series inspired by the four take-away messages from USAID’s primer on private-sector engagement in fragile and conflict-affected situations, focuses on the Strengthening Livelihoods and Resilience Activity's experience vetting private-sector actors as potential development partners in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo where a paucity of enterprise data, low standards for company operations, and an absence of familiar business norms make it difficult to apply a typical approach to partner prospecting.

This blog, the second in a series inspired by the four take-away messages from USAID’s primer on private-sector engagement in fragile and conflict-affected situations, focuses on managing private-sector actors who are problematically invested in maintaining a fragile, humanitarian-dependent socioeconomic system dominated by conflict. It describes the strategy of the Strengthening Livelihoods and Resilience Activity for selecting partners and co-creating activities with communities in a conflict-sensitive way in the eastern DRC and explores the team's discomfort with some aspects of the 'bad actor' paradigm.

This blog, the first in a series inspired by the four take-away lessons from USAID’s primer on private-sector engagement in fragile and conflict-affected situations, focuses on adding social inclusion and conflict sensitivity as a third dimension to shared value in the partnerships of the USAID Strengthening Livelihoods and Resilience Activity in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The USAID CATALYZE Engines of Growth (EoG) Activity and the USAID Diaspora Invest Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina are creating new investment opportunities in the country. While domestic family businesses have developed over generations, they need to prepare to find investors and for future investments. This was the driving force behind the organization of the “Family Business: Next Generation” workshop, which brought together representatives from 28 micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In the Western Balkans, women entrepreneurs face notable challenges in accessing finance, stemming from issues such as high collateral requirements, societal norms, and financial literacy gaps. USAID CATALYZE Engines of Growth (EoG) in the Western Balkans addresses these challenges by establishing a network of Business Advisory Service Providers (BASPs) and promoting alternative financing sources tailored to SME needs.Learning from Experience:

Several terms have gained prominence in recent times. The SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19, pandemic caused much thinking on localisation and heightened questions surrounding shifting the power. As we moved forward from the worst of the pandemic, lessons have been drawn in different ways by those seeking to make changes happen. Regularly, this is within the specific organisational agenda noting one of the rules of a bureaucracy is to perpetuate itself. Shifting the power is great – as long as my job is ok?

Belgrade, Serbia — September 15, 2023 — The USAID CATALYZE Western Balkans Engines of Growth (EoG) Activity successfully concluded its regional learning event, “Synergy in Learning: Catalyzing SMEs Financing in the Western Balkans,” held in Belgrade, Serbia on September 14th and 15th, 2023.

The Case of Aminata Ouedraogo in Burkina Faso

Niger, a landlocked country in the Sahel, faces numerous threats such as terrorism and climate change. As more than 80% of Nigeriens rely on subsistence agriculture, increasing food security and resilience through access to finance for agriculture sector actors is essential to combat the threats the country faces.

USAID CATALYZE helps women SMEs access new markets and grow

The population of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is currently estimated at 1.2 billion people,1 and is projected to double by 2050. The continent’s smallholder farmers (SHF) account for 60% of the population,2 and produce 80% of the food consumed.3 These figures highlight the critical role that agriculture and SHF play in the continent’s food security and development.

How do you rise to the challenge of extending equitable economic opportunities to more than 600,000 women and men in Northeastern Nigeria ?

The Linkage Between Food Safety and Sustainability Food loss and waste pose a major threat to both global food system security and sustainability. Postharvest loss is both nutrient and resource loss. When food is wasted, so are the resources required to produce it, namely land, water, and energy. In Africa, with the world’s highest rates of hunger and malnutrition, about a third of all food produced is lost before it ever reaches consumers.

USAID CATALYZE Partners with Private Equity Fund to Ready SMEs for Private Investors Increasingly, global private investors are eyeing the Western Balkans as the potential for diversifying their portfolios. While private equity financing can raise working capital for a company through restructuring ownership and/or management, few small- and medium-sized business owners in the region are aware of, understand, or desire such a private equity model. In fact, many SME owners resist giving up power and ownership to outsiders.

This blog is written by Anila Behramaj.

This blog was originally published on the USAID Medium. By Dragana Todosijevic, USAID CATALYZE Engines of Growth (EoG)

In vibrant financial ecosystems, Business Advisory Service Providers (BASPs) play a vital role in unlocking financing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). BASPs are business consultants, lawyers, incubation hubs, accountants, and other intermediaries who support actors on the demand or supply side of capital during the transaction process. With the right capacity and experience to support SMEs and investors, they can accelerate and direct large volumes of investment.

In early 2022, the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia) started to emerge from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, boasting rising industrial production, exports to the European Union (EU), increases in wages, and credit growth. The region is ripe for investment, but Russia’s war against Ukraine threatens this recovery, through higher energy and food costs, disruption in supply chains, and interruptions in trade.

As private foundations and investors take more interest in refugee services, we are seeing more innovative solutions and approaches for delivering services to refugee communities. The Smart Communities Coalition (SCC) brings the humanitarian and private sectors together to foster innovation in refugee settings, and at the SCC’s 5th Annual Meeting, one theme resonated: there is a strong economic case for refugees, who present a large untapped market as productive members of their host communities and would benefit from tailored services, not just humanitarian aid. 

The story doesn’t end when the lights come on for the first time in rural communities – electric service is a powerful foundation for strengthening communities. It’s critical to also provide enough knowledge to help them generate more income, improve healthcare services, and access better education. With electricity, farmers can mechanize their mills, coffee growers can process their own harvest, and dairy farmers can chill their milk.

Biljana Stanisavljva started her small business in Serbia in 2011, growing wheat and corn as a smallholder farmer. She wants to grow her business, but like many agricultural entrepreneurs, she finds it very challenging to obtain funds for her expansion plans. And as a woman, she faces additional challenges. Even after a decade as a registered business owner, she still has to rely on her husband for most business decisions. 

This post was written by Dan Hudner, Market System Resilience Measurement Lead at Mercy Corps.

Third in a series of five blogs on the factors that contribute to sustaining and scaling private sector partnerships from the Enduring Results Study 3.0