Dirección

Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana – SICA Colonia San Benito, Calle Circunvalación, No. 294, San Salvador, El Salvador, Centroamérica

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MSME Region 2024 Forum

The MSME Region 2024 Forum will be held on June 19, 20 and 21, bringing together key players from the public, private and academic sectors of Central America and the Dominican Republic. This event seeks to promote dialogue and collaboration on three strategic issues that are crucial for the development of MSMEs in the region:

  1. Commercial exchange

  2. Access to financing

  3. Improved productivity

Objective of the Forum

The MSME Region 2024 Forum aims to give a voice to MSMEs and their demands within the Central American integration process, create consensus that positions them as an engine of economic and social development, and connect them regionally and globally.

Transversal Axes of the forum: Female Entrepreneurship and Digital Transformation

Female Entrepreneurship

In the MSME Region 2024 Forum, female entrepreneurship takes center stage, given that more than 60% of the MSME business park is being led by women, which is why specialized attention for the empowerment and scaling up of these companies is now one of the institutional priorities. At Cenpromype we no longer speak of being gender neutral, but rather of promoting a transformative gender approach.

For this reason, during the MSME Region 2024 Forum, a workshop will be held in parallel for the construction of the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy. This space is expected to include the participation of the networks of businesswomen that were part of the construction of the Regional Agenda for Women and MSMEs. In addition, key actors of the MSME ecosystem will participate, including the MSME authorities of the SICA countries, in order to create a space for dialogue and the necessary consensus to have the necessary inputs for the development of the Strategy.

Digital Transformation

The second cross-cutting theme of the MSME Region 2024 Forum is digital transformation, which is also one of the axes of the Regional Policy on Modernization and Transformation for MSMEs in the SICA countries (2022-2050) and is focused on reducing the digital divide in MSMEs. In addition, digital transformation is understood as changes in organizational culture, adoption of new technologies, process automation, implementation of advanced data analytics, supply chain optimization and other aspects to adapt to the digital era.

The MSME Region 2024 Forum aims to be a space for dialogue on the urgency and acceleration of the digital transformation of MSMEs in the region. The aim is to develop a proposal to improve the development of digital transformation and to reach a consensus on an instrument to promote it.

Background of the Forum

The first SICA High Level Forum for MSME Economic Reactivation was held on July 20, 21 and 22, 2021, under the slogan: “Building regional roads. Leaving no one behind”. This event sought to promote policies and mechanisms for the competitive reactivation of MSMEs in the region through dialogue, consensus building and collaborative work among the actors of the SICA business development ecosystem.

During the first forum, three key topics for the transformation of MSMEs were addressed: innovation, entrepreneurship and new financing alternatives. The event was attended by entrepreneurs, public, private and academic stakeholders, and culminated with a special declaration to prioritize entrepreneurship, innovation and financing in the development of MSMEs.

This historical context sets the stage for the MSME Region 2024 Forum, ensuring the continuity and evolution of regional efforts to promote the development of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in Central America and the Dominican Republic.