M4EG Signatories exchanging experience in supporting Tourism, Wine-making, and IT industries at the local level

The M4EG thematic networking groups, bringing together the M4EG Acting members with similar development priorities, have been active throughout the year 2019. In October-November 2020 the thematic groups on Tourism, IT, and Wine Making convened their first networking and best practice sharing events. More information about them can be found here:

• Networking thematic event on Tourism in L’viv, Ukraine
• Networking thematic event on Wine Making in Moldova
• Networking thematic event on IT in Belarus

With the remaining two groups on Business Support Services and Agriculture having conducted their networking events earlier in the year, the M4EG Acting members have had an opportunity to thoroughly address and discuss each of the main common local development priorities and share their experiences in the corresponding areas.

Curious how the Eastern Partnership region territories stand globally as tourism destinations, IT hubs, and agricultural producers? Wonder what should be taken into consideration in order to improve their performance in these areas?

We have done some research, which is now available in English and Russian in our E-library:

• Market Research of the IT sector
• Market Research of the Tourism sector
• Market Research of the Agricultural sector

• Обзор рынка информационных технологий
• Обзор рынка туризма
• Обзор рынка сельского хозяйства

The EU Mayors for Economic Growth Initiative gives voice to local administrations of the Eastern Partnership countries at the Forum of EU-EAP Local Leaders in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 24-25 October 2019.

The Forum “10th Anniversary of the Eastern Partnership: Localising Sustainable Development Goals”, hosted by the city administration of the Lithuanian capital, brought together the key actors behind the EU Eastern Partnership Initiative in order to take stock of the 10 years of the Initiative’s operation and discuss a vision of the way forward. The participants of the event came from PLATFORMA, the main organizer of the Forum, EC DG NEAR and DEVCO, the Council of Europe, the European Committee of the Regions, EBRD, representatives of EU cities, Associations of Local Authorities from both Western Europe, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.

The joint 1,5 day training of the M4EG Initiative and the World Bank on “Understanding and supporting local SMEs” was conducted for M4EG Signatories in Tbilisi (Georgia), Kyiv (Ukraine), Chisinau (Moldova), and Yerevan (Armenia).

The four training events took place successively during the period between 2 and 13 December 2019. In total, over 100 representatives of M4EG Signatories from these 4 countries received a thorough overview of the types of different SMEs, the peculiarities of their performance growth potential, and needs for support. In each country, the participants of the training reviewed the existing available support instruments, conducted some group activities, and held discussions on the topic with close reference to the national context.

The first M4EG Pioneer Projects are reaching their finishing lines. The case of Edinet, Moldova.

The M4EG Pioneer Project in Edinet is officially finalized in January 2020, advancing Edinet towards its ambition to become an economic growth pole of the North region of Moldova.

Here is the video about it

The M4EG Secretariat has launched a Call for Success Stories resulting from the Signatories’ participation in the M4EG Initiative.

Small successes also matter, as they pave the way to larger successes. So, we are collecting testimonials about the M4EG members’ meaningful achievements of different scale. Most inspiring stories will be documented as case studies or success stories to form a solid knowledge bank on local economic development in the Eastern Partnership region.