TABADOOL – REGIONAL EXCHANGE ENABLING BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring and since the outbreak of the global economic and financial crisis, most countries of the European Southern Neighbourhood could not recover to the level of economic growth rates reached before 2008.

Since November 2018, AFC together with GOPA Worldwide Consultants implements the “Support to Economic Governance and Reforms in the Southern Neighbourhood” project funded by the European Commission. The project operates in ten countries of the European Southern Neighbourhood, namely Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Syria. It aims to foster inclusive and sustainable growth by improving the business environment for MSMEs by supporting policy and regulatory reforms drawing on European and international good practices.

The project supports public-private and inter-institutional dialogue in the framework of a community of practice called “Tabadool” (exchange in Arabic) gathering more than 200 policy makers, regulators and private sector representatives around two working groups respectively on access to finance and internationalisation. These working groups issued roadmaps by countries that were consolidated in a regional document that paved the way for knowledge development, dialogue, trainings on emerging topics deserving to be tackled through a regional lens. The activities are closely coordinated with the Union for the Mediterranean (Barcelona, Spain), the International Trade Center, the OECD and INSME (Italy) and include digital single windows for external trade, simplification of trade procedures, microfinance impact enhancement through digitalisation, green deal and corporate responsibility through South Mediterranean value chains.

As regards access to finance, AFC provides support in facilitating small enterprises’ access to finance by scaling up innovative financial institutions and by sensitising on the EU Payment Service Directive 2 that requires European financial institutions to share their data with third parties thus creating the big data required to foster the emergence of the banking 4.0.

A community of practice was established gathering more than 250 policymakers, private sector and civil society representatives interested in improving the MSME business environment in the Southern Mediterranean countries. This network contributed to enrich the roster of over 150 good practices and recommendations in the field of access to finance, internationalisation, gender inclusion and entrepreneurship developed by the project’s experts. The community of practice allows for raising awareness and discussing emerging topics inspired by the EU, notably the regulatory sandbox that tests regulatory innovations and thus paving the way for new financial services.

The dialogue, online or hybrid at national or regional level, enables to exchange inspiring practices that nurture the informed elaboration of bilateral and multilateral EU cooperation programmes and other development partners as well as the South-South exchange of practices and interinstitutional coordination.

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