Economic Growth

The activity works with resource partners to unlock the growth, productivity, and employment potential of MSMEs by: a) co-investing funds, expertise, and technology to modernize, improve management, and build workforce skills; b) increasing financing through available and alternative sources and improving investment readiness; and c) advocating and lobbying through the Public-Private Dialogue platform.

USAID is partnering with Strategic Development Consulting to 1) conduct a policy analysis and develop recommendations to support government efforts to strengthen MSME resilience in the face of economic crises; 2) help BSOs improve their capacities to respond to their member MSMEs’ needs; and 3) improve BSO services to promote women’s economic empowerment and economic equity.

Through small grants, jointly funded by Rotary and USAID, local Rotary clubs across Europe and Eurasia, including Rotaract (youth-led) clubs, design and implement activities to benefit their communities, demonstrating a commitment to enhancing local leadership, capacity, and accountability.

Through this regional activity, USAID is supporting the Government of North Macedonia to finalize the legal framework for the National Cybersecurity Strategy. We are partnering with the government to draft legal and policy frameworks, address critical infrastructure challenges such as threat identification and information sharing, and provide capacity building initiatives for key stakeholders. 

The aim of this activity is to enable local businesses to be better informed about trade trends and market needs, as well as value and supply chains. This is so that they can better integrate into regional and global value chains, and have stronger capacity to compete in the Western Balkan region and more broadly in the EU.

The Engines of Growth Activity engages market actors to identify opportunities to improve the availability and use of appropriate financial products and services for SMEs to address financial constraints.

The Economic Development, Governance and Enterprise Growth Activity (EDGE) works to enhance the business enabling environment and reduce barriers to cross-border trade and investment by helping countries to harmonize and converge with the European Union Acquis and the World Trade Organization Trade Facilitation Agreement. EDGE supports implementation of trade integration in Central European Free Trade Agreement countries in line with the Common Regional Market Action Plan 2021–2024.

Connect for Growth (C4G) is a five-year United States Agency for International Development (USAID) project that strengthens the energy security and resilience of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, and other priority countries in the region.

USAID has two Agriculture Development Credit Authorities (DCAs) that have provided loan portfolio guarantees (LPGs) to lending institutions. The DCAs mitigate the risks faced by participating banks and microfinance institutions in North Macedonia that provide loans for agriculture development and diversification of rural economies. The total loan portfolio that can be covered by these guarantees is $26 million.