The EBSOMED Executive Committee met online on January 15th, 2021, for its 6th meeting since the start of the project. The meeting gathered the Directors and project managers of the Consortium, the EBSOMED Secretariat as well as the European Commission representatives (DG NEAR).

The Preliminary remarks were given by the Deputy Head of Unit Ms. Ingrid Schweiger, who marked the importance for the EBSOMED project to continue to push forward, ensuring the sustainability component in line with the new European Commission priorities.

The project partners (Employers Federations, Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development Agencies, Women-led organisations from the Euro-Mediterranean region) highlighted the crucial role that Business Support Organisations had in 2020 in shouldering Mediterranean SMEs to mitigate the consequences of the COVID19 crisis, by providing technical assistance and trusted and reliable information on covid19 related issues and access to market. They also stated that their role was vital in untapping opportunities for resilience and recovery of the private sector ecosystem by, inter alia, showcasing the best development champions in the region and allocating resources for impact that lasts including the SDGs.

The renewed approach of the EBSOMED project highlighted four main strategic pillars that will evolve around the BCD platform developed by BUSINESSMED:

1. Guiding business support organisations and their members toward innovation and digitalisation roadmaps, key tools and strategies with a gender perspective approach. 
2. Boosting a new operational industrial strategy 
3. Pursue and benefit from benchmarks and good practices on how to emerge from the crisis at the meso and micro level with the involvement and testimonials of state authorities.
4. Identify leverages to benefit from the expected regionalisation of value chains dynamics in the Mediterranean. 

The management working group of the project will gather in the next few weeks to discuss and plan the future actions, the sustainability plan and the exit strategy of the project.