USAID Enterprise Competitiveness Project Year 4 Work Plan

The project focuses on four core interventions: End-Market Linkages, Expanding SMEs' Human and Social Capital: Firm-Level Support, Expanding Financial Capital: Support to Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NBFIs) and Non-Traditional Finance, and Creating a More Enabling Business Environment. These interventions are designed to foster a system that increases market access and competitiveness, catalyzes investment, unlocks opportunities for women and youth, builds skills, and encourages a stronger business enabling environment. The project contributes to the USAID/Kyrgyz Republic's (USAID/KR's) economic growth Development Objective (DO) 3, "Accelerated growth of a diversified and equitable economy," and is implemented across the whole Kyrgyz Republic (KR). The project may support firms in any sectors or industries allowed by USAID policy. The USAID ECP Work Plan for Year 4 (Y4) represents a platform for advancement of Project objectives and targets, building on Y3 achievements and lessons learned from experience implementing partnerships under circumstances imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Project activities in Y4 will continue with the provision of grants to SMEs as an important instrument that contributes to their growth and sustainability while also paying attention to the scaling impact stage that will allow the Project to concentrate efforts on transformative partnerships that will bring systemic changes and pave the way for sustainability of the system post USAID ECP. This year, USAID ECP will leverage the strong partnerships it has developed with several innovative market actors, to bring innovations to scale, making, where possible, the market system more inclusive. The Project will utilize minimum resources to achieve maximum impact. The project will organize a facilitated discussion with partners to understand what is working, what is not, and why. This open discussion will be the first step to turn the successful innovations introduced by our partners into systemic change. It will help capture lessons and identify clear market leaders and opportunities to scale up what works and dampen what does not. During Y4, USAID ECP will conduct targeted training sessions on ACDI/VOCA's Inclusive Market Systems Approach with trainers that will enhance the capacity of project partners to implement the project's interventions effectively. The project's components include End-Market Linkages, which aims to increase market access and competitiveness for SMEs; Expanding SMEs' Human and Social Capital: Firm-Level Support, which focuses on building skills and human capital among SMEs; Expanding Financial Capital: Support to Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NBFIs) and Non-Traditional Finance, which aims to increase access to financial services for SMEs; and Creating a More Enabling Business Environment, which seeks to improve the business enabling environment for SMEs. The project will also conduct monitoring and evaluation activities to assess the project's progress and impact.