RISI Albania

Project: Business development services for rural entrepreneurs

Objective:

•  Help agribusinesses to increase their absorption rate of IPARD and national grant schemes and access to finance as a first step towards investment and job creation through the services of Tirana RDA.
• Pilot a sustainable model for TIRANA RDA to offer improved and innovative services to agribusinesses.

Implementation:

• Meetings/workshops with farmers or group of farmers, CCI-es, business associations and other businesses,
• Visits to targeted clients,
• Support services in individual base to new/existing clients,
• Need assessments for raising access to finance via IPARD grant schemes,
• Networking activities etc.

 Results and findings:

 Tirana RDA during the development of meetings /workshops/contacts with groups and individual businesses has highligted various findings for future improvement as follows:

• The information provided in the meetings was extensive both in electronic form and in printed copies such as the respective bulletin of AZHBR for IPARD 2;
• There was a positive reaction during the discussion in general about the IPARD 2 program and other AZHBR supporting grant schemes in the cities of Elbasan, Berat, Durres, Puke and Tirana etc.;
• Clients prefer meeting face to face with consultants rather than in groups which resulted a bit difficult during December and January because of variety of issues they raise.
• Businesses wanted to be up-to-date with all IPARD 2 program components and the support in general;
• The IPARD 2 or National Grant Schemes via AZHBR are very interesting for the participants since there is an increased flow of granted money to be invested in local market compared to loans;
• Different businesses have requests for alternative sources of technology or machinery;