The MEDA-ETE project, which started in January 2006, ended its activities in December 2008. Component 3 of this project focused on Entrepreneurship and was implemented by Triodos Facet. Several dissemination events were held from October to December, to share the results of the project with a wider public, both on a national and a regional level.

National seminars were held in all countries to present the results of the components of the project. These seminars were hosted by the European Training Foundation (ETF) with active participation from the Triodos Facet project team*. The purpose of these so-called ‘MEDA-ETE Days’ was to disseminate the results of the project and to act as a catalyst for follow-up activities on a national level.

Amman, Jordan. November 2008	Dieter Kohn and Gerrit Ribbink

In November there was also a final regional seminar of all the parties involved in the Component 3 activities. This seminar was held in Amman, Jordan, for logistical reasons. Participants from all countries except Syria attended the seminar, as well as experts from the Best Practices involved. The purpose of the two-day seminar was to share experiences and agree on guidelines for future entrepreneurship development activities in the MEDA region.

The MEDA-ETE Component 3 project was set up with the aim to enhance the capacity of service providers in entrepreneurship development in the MEDA region – the Middle East and North Africa – in order to combat unemployment among youth. The approach that was chosen was to identify ‘best practices’ in both the EU and the MEDA region, to match these with service providers in the MEDA region and to arrange the transfer of these best practices to a selected group of trainers in the corresponding MEDA country.

Following this approach, best practices from Bulgaria, Morocco, Portugal, Sweden and the UK were linked to ‘core service providers’ in 8 countries in the MEDA region. Each ‘match’ resulted in a Training of Trainers and at least one pilot training to test the methodology in each country. All in all, 141 trainers were trained, 63 of whom were able to test the methodology in a pilot training involving some 200 young (aspiring) entrepreneurs.

The best practices which proved to be most popular were Open for Business from Sweden and GLEAM from the UK. Both methodologies have a strong focus on the entrepreneurial mind-set, with the difference that OfB usually targets high school students and is more playful than GLEAM which was devised for university students. All the best practices use highly interactive training methods, based on the principle of ‘learning-by-doing’.

Other methodologies included the post start-up monitoring and counselling of ADRAL (Portugal), the generation of business ideas linked with the setting up of business centres of JOBS/ILO (Bulgaria) and the selection and business support process of Moukawalati (Morocco). The latter was chosen by PCEED from Syria and was the only case of direct cooperation within the MEDA region. Besides offering obvious language advantages, this paved the way for an ongoing exchange process, which is foreseen to continue after the project has ended.

An interesting experience worth highlighting was the training of career guidance counsellors from the Ministry of Education in Lebanon. These former school teachers have been retrained by Injaz Lebanon to provide career counselling at high schools. Injaz then suggested to use the GLEAM methodology to train these counsellors in entrepreneurship. At the request of Injaz, the ETF has now agreed to provide funding for a follow-up training for the career counsellors in Lebanon, but this time using the Open for Business methodology.

Besides the direct effects for the trainers and the service providers that were involved in all the transfer activities, the project has also established hitherto non-existent links between people and organisations within the MEDA region, as well as with people and organisations outside the region. This burgeoning network of service providers can benefit mutually from a continued exchange of experiences, with support from ETF and other donor agencies.

The best practices and lessons learned from the transfer process have been brought together in a final document with the title “Building Blocks for Entrepreneurship Development in the MEDA region”, which will be printed and distributed by the ETF at the final Annual Forum of the project in May 2009. Most of the ‘building blocks’ suggested in this document are compatible with the Oslo Agenda for Entrepreneurship Education in Europe.

*The Triodos Facet project team consisted of the team leader, Mr. Gerrit Ribbink, and the Training Expert, Mr. Dieter Kohn. Project management support was provided by Mrs. Hedwig Siewertsen, Mr. Söhnke Buschmann and Mr. Klaas Molenaar. Additional support was given by Ms. Wieteke Gondrie and several staff members of NSCE Consultants in Egypt.

[Worldwide, ref. 544, EU, 2006-2008]