Croatia is a country in transition and is facing the difficult task of introducing a market-oriented economic system when damages caused by a long lasting civil war are still visible everywhere. There is a severe recession with high unemployment rates, in particular among women. The SME sector is suffering from various shortages; efficient schemes for SME promotion have not yet been established. Promoting the SME sector in Croatia requires a multi-level approach in order to contribute to the improvement of the social and economic situation of the countries population (overall objective) by enabling SME in selected provinces to offer new employment opportunities, in particular to women, and to increase their value-added (project goal). Thus, the project concept comprises a wide range of support measures for selected regions and priority sectors:

• Macro level: establishing favourable legal-administrative framework conditions
• Meso level: building up local capacities for SME training and counselling
• Micro level: fostering new enterprise formation.

Project results are expected to be measurable with respect to:

• Qualification of  state-run agencies at national and provincial level to effective formulation and  implementation of SME promotion schemes
• Smooth co-operation between these agencies and SME representative organisations
• Demand oriented build-up and qualification of respective training and counselling providers
• Increase of SME performance and competitiveness in selected priority sectors
• Capability training of potential entrepreneurs to substantiate their aspirations and secure their success.

The project will be closely co-ordinated with a number of other related GTZ commitments as well as with the assistance programs of other donors and implementing agencies, respectively.