Market Systems Approach

How will we work to achieve our objectives? Our approach is based on a Market Systems Development approach. What is important about this approach is that it is market-driven, focusing on the existing challenges and demands on the market, while trying to assist market actors in overcoming the challenges and creating more opportunities for work. We provide incentives for market actors to support the sustainable long-term growth in the sectors of Adventure Tourism, Sustainable Agribusiness and ICT. We achieve this through our three instruments:

Opportunity Fund

Our Opportunity Fund provides co-funding for innovative proposals from anchor firms, suppliers, entrepreneurs and other market actors to remove or lower the risk in new products or services development, and strengthen the capacity of other actors in the supply chains.

The Opportunity Fund functions on a rolling basis, and interested stakeholders will be able to apply throughout the year. The expected size of allocated funding ranges between CHF 5,000 to 20,000.  Applicants are expected to co-invest and to show that their applications are performance based, measurable and contribute to IME objectives. Eligible applicants are companies or non-government organizations registered in the Republic of North Macedonia or individual entrepreneurs authorized to work in North Macedonia, and they can apply whether as individual entities or groups of firms engaged in anchor firm alliances.

More information on the open calls and application process.

Business Service Organizations (BSOs)

We work with Business Service Organizations (BSOs) to address sector-wide constraints in the Sustainable Agribusiness, Adventure Tourism and ICT sectors. We support BSOs to provide services to target sector companies that will enable the private sector to access new markets, develop new products, improve workforce capacities. These services can range from technical advise, coaching and training for design and promotion of new products, to organising job fairs or undertaking policy reforms.  Through this instrument, we also support BSOs to develop their own capacities to diversify their services.

The BSOs Instrument functions on a rolling basis, and interested entities are able to apply throughout the year. The expected size of funding ranges between CHF 2,000 to 10,000. Applicants must co-invest and demonstrate what impact the intervention can potentially have to increase sales for the applicant and sales in the sector. Eligible applicants are individual companies, business associations or CSOs (sports clubs, cooperatives, etc). Where an individual company applies, the company must demonstrate how the intervention will support other companies in the sector.

More information on the open calls and application process.

Pay-for-Performance (P4P) program

IME strives to strengthen the ecosystem of service support providers to businesses in the Sustainable Agriculture, Adventure Tourism and ICT sectors to address market system failures.  Businesses in these sectors face similar challenges when it comes to accessing finance and product quality certification. Resolving these challenges can be costly and inefficient for small and medium companies. To address this challenge, IME designed the Pay-for-Performance (P4P) program  which allows companies from the three target sectors to access services offered by business development service providers (BDSP).  These services include support to access to finance to apply to different loans and grant opportunities. Business service providers  can also provide technical assistance to obtain market-demanded standards for certification of their products or services.

The P4P program is a user-pay system. Companies are required to partially pay for the services of the business development service provider, while IME shares the costs to certain limits. IME has made a selection of individual consultants and consulting companies that can act as BDSP consultants. Companies that need support to access finance, apply for a grant or attain a market-demanded standard or certificate, can reach out to one of the IME consultants

List of BDSP consultants selected by IME 

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