BENCHMARKING EVALUATION OF SME SUPPORT PROGRAM:CASE OF CONSULTING SUBSIDIARY GRANTS IN SLOVENIA AND FYROM

SMEs need external business support, in particular during the early development stage. Government agencies have developed a number of initiatives and voucher system is targeted at counselling combined with information and training. A pilot program started in two small regions and the program is scheduled to cover the whole territory, relying on the network of local enterprise centres. In 2006 the know-how for the system was transferred into Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This paper presents the fundamental concept of the voucher system and the rules for a comprehensive approach, discusses the organizational structure and functions of different stakeholders. The assumptions for an effective system are analyzed and comments from evaluations are discussed. The potentials for further development of the system in FYROM on the basis of the know-how from Slovenia are assessed. An innovative outcome of the study is development of the framework for bench-marking based policy measure evaluation.