www.smedsep.ph What's New as of November 10, 2005
SMEDSEP
Please do visit our website at www.smedsep.ph for more information.
As of November 10, 2005
The first phase of Small and Medium Enterprise Development for Sustainable Employment Program (SMEDSEP) is due to end in August 2006. GTZ, within the context of its quality management policy, is required to conduct a Project Progress Review (PPR) for all of its programs to support self-evaluation and impact monitoring as well as to make recommendations for the next phase. As such, SMEDSEP recently concluded a PPR (October 10-20) in order to plan the strategy for the next phase.
During the mission period, the PPR team had a series of meetings with SMEDSEP’s public and private partners to get their input and ideas, as well as with other donor agencies. The mission team then presented their recommendations in a series of workshops with all partners. These recommendations are currently in the process of being discussed and clarified with our partners at the head offices of DTI and TESDA.
We will post updates on the Strategy for the Second phase in this section. In the meantime, we would like to thank all those who participated in the PPR Mission!
Enabling Environment:
- SMEDSEP recently had consultative meetings with the LGUs of Ormoc and Bacolod LGUs to follow-up on reforms for improving the business registration and licensing procedures in the two cities. In both cities, the Action Plans for improving the registration and licensing procedures were revisited and revised in order to prepare for the next round of business registration in January 2006. As part of the Action Plan, the LGUs are preparing additional proposals to improve the process such as businessmen's fora, training, computer networking and benchmarking missions.
- A summary of the outcomes of the seminar organized by GTZ called Shaping an Enabling Business and Investment Climate in Asia: Making Reforms Work, as well as a presentation on good practices in reforming the business and investment climate, are available here. The Seminar outcomes cover country-specific lessons learned, emerging priorities and challenges. For participants from the Philippines, lessons learned and challenges focus on political will to implement reforms and maximizing the use of tools such as Regulatory Impact Analysis and results chain as a way of designing programs.
Local and Regional Economic Development:
- LRED Expert Rolf Speit is currently in Leyte on a month-long mission, which encompasses an Internal Assessment with pilot LGUs, stakeholders and partners to evaluate the LRED approach of the programme and to come up with recommendations for the future phases of project implementation. Watch this space for his report.
- An LRED Training of Trainers is currently taking place to demonstrate concepts of LRED, provide necessary skills to conduct a rapid economic appraisal, and equip participants from the government with LRED facilitation techniques and tools
- Nine lighthouse projects have
been selected in Leyte to receive assistance from GTZ-SMEDSEP:
- Baybay: Establishing the Tourism & Investment Promotion Office
- Carigara:
- Establishing the Kangara VCO Production Center (village level VCO production)
- Establishing a Pilot Organic Fertilizer Processing Center
- Improving Conservation and Packaging of Roscas delicacies
- Strengthening of Ormoc City Chamber of Commerce & Industry
- Initiating the Systematic Promotion of Lake Danao
- Completing the Project Feasibility Study for Introduction of Cold Storage Facility
- Information Materials on Tourism Promotion
- Establishing the Investment Promotion-Business Center (IPBC)
Business Development Services:
- BDS providers to be supported by SMEDSEP in Negros Occidental and Cebu have already been selected by a Steering Committee, comprised of DTI, TESDA and GTZ-SMEDSEP representatives. Selection of Providers was done by assessing their business plans based on the criteria of do-ability, time efficiency, impact and outreach.
- In Negros Occidental, three
providers were selected:
- La Consolacion College-Bacolod
- Visayan Maritime Academy
- YES Services, Inc.
- Interface Computer College
- Cebu Educational Development Foundation for IT (CEDF-IT)
- University of San Jose Recoletos (USJR)
- Leaders’ Link
- LEAD, Inc.
Financial Services:
- SME Finance Strategy and Marketing in-house training seminars were conducted in all three pilot provinces, targeting bank executives and loan officers and loan appraisers in rural banks. Additionally, Thrift Banks in Negros Occidental (Postal Bank, Dungganon Bank) underwent similar training.
- To complement the above in-house training, some anchor banks also underwent on-the-job training on how to do loan appraisals using cash flow base method and credit marketing.
- SMEDSEP’s future endeavors in Financial Services will include working out models for institutionalizing bank trainings in the Philippines. It is foreseen that this will involve working closely with BDS providers in the financial field (identifying them, accrediting them to make them credible and acceptable to banks).
Please do visit our website at www.smedsep.ph for more information.
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