by Irene Wijaya | Oct 18, 2021 | MSME & private sector engagement, Projects
Status: Completed. Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are key players in the economies of ASEAN. However, as highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, they are largely vulnerable to impacts of disasters due to their limited resources and widespread informality. This project is designed towards enhancing MSMEs crisis and disaster resilience through the development of a set of guidelines that will provide recommendations of appropriate and timely measures to minimise the impact of future disasters and crises on MSMEs. The guidelines will serve as reference for ASEAN policy makers to push forth MSME resilience including the provision of skills and risk awareness programs. At the same time, it will advocate for the institutionalisation of safety nets to support MSMEs to cope and recover from these shocks as well as strengthening MSME value chain and smarter supply networks. This project is a follow on to one of the key recommendations arising from the earlier AADCP II supported project on the Mid-term Review (MTR) of the ASEAN Strategic Action Plan for SME Development 2016 – 2025 (SAP SMED 2025), which highlighted the need for ASEAN Member States (AMS) to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic by ensuring that their crisis management skills are relevant and adaptable to changes. Download the Guidelines: Enhancing the Resilience of MSMEs to Crises and Disasters: Regional Guidelines for ASEAN Governments [PDF, 4,000...
by Irene Wijaya | Nov 11, 2020 | MSME & private sector engagement, Projects
Status: Completed. As a key stakeholder, the participation and involvement of the private sector is crucial to the creation of a strong foundation for the successful implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). Greater involvement and more structured participation of the private sector can contribute to the success of ASEAN in designing regional strategies and initiatives as well as in identifying impediments to deepen regional economic integration. The AEC, in turn, will also benefit the private sector, both large enterprises as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This is due to an integrated economic region with greater liberalisation and freer movements of goods, services, investment and skilled labour as envisioned in the AEC. The project supported a study to gather insights from ASEAN indigenous enterprises (large enterprises and SMEs) on their sentiments towards the AEC, including the business environment, investment climate, and integration outlook in the region; and in particular, on the impact of services trade liberalisation as facilitated through the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS) and related regional cooperation programmes and initiatives. This study delved deeper to gauge the sentiment on services trade liberalisation and removal of barriers in services trade, focusing on three key sectors, namely financial services, tourism services, and distribution services. This video highlights the findings of this study: Download the report: ASEAN Business Sentiment Survey 2020-2021 | AADCP II (aadcp2.org) For more information regarding this project, please contact the Enterprise and Stakeholders Engagement Division of the ASEAN...
by Irene Wijaya | Nov 11, 2020 | MSME & private sector engagement, Projects
Status: Completed. The SAP SMED 2025 was adopted by ASEAN in November 2015 to enhance Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) competitiveness, resilience and to enable greater benefits from ASEAN economic integration. It serves to strengthen MSMEs in an increasingly competitive global economic environment. It supports initiatives conducive to improving the policy environment for MSME’s to drive productivity and innovation, as well as supporting inclusive and equitable development. This project supports the mid-term review (MTR) of the SAP SMED 2025. The main objective of the MTR is to assess the extent to which SAP SMED 2025 has been effectively implemented, the degree to which outcomes have been achieved, and to make recommendations that will improve implementation. It will enable key stakeholders, particularly the ASEAN Coordinating Committee on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (ACCSME), to: make informed decisions to improve implementation effectiveness and performance understand drivers, success factors and lessons learned, as well as constraints and challenges that cause delay and areas requiring further work or reform consider a set of actionable and concrete recommendations towards improving implementation of the SAP SMED 2025 and moving it forward. The evaluation report can be downloaded...
