The messenger logo

East Invest launches consultancy service for Eastern Partnership business support organisations

Tuesday, October 23
East Invest has launched a consultancy service for Eastner Partnership (EaP) business support organisations (BSOs) allowing experts from the EU East Alliance partner organisations to go on consultancy missions and assist their EaP colleagues on site with the development of their organisations.

The BSO consultancy service facility is open to partners and other business support organisations from the six EaP countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine).

The missions will last from one to four weeks and are demand driven, i.e. the EaP BSO requesting help on a specific aspect of its organisation. The facility is driven by the EaP beneficiaries. They submit applications to host an EU colleague from one of the EU East Alliance partner BSOs in their organisation.

The subject areas of the traineeships are to be in line with the overall objectives of the East Invest project and are to contribute to enhancing the capacity of the EaP BSO in advocacy/lobbying, internationalisation and/or investment promotion. The following subjects are priority areas for the capacity enhancement of the EaP BSOs within East Invest: Quality management; strategy and planning; personnel; communication/knowledge; clients and membership; services/finance/accounting.

“When filling in the application form for the consultancy service programme, applicants are warmly invited to consider one or several of the general and/or more [of these] specific subject areas,” say the application guidelines.

The guidelines also set out what East Invest will pay for, which includes full coverage of the travel costs of the EU consultant/trainer (on a reimbursement basis).

In total, 20 places are available. Prior to applying, interested candidates are invited to read the application guidelines. A dedicated application form can be downloaded or requested directly from the East Invest team at EUROCHAMBRES.

Candidates can in principle apply at any time throughout the duration of the East Invest project, but by 15 May 2013 at the latest.

After the traineeship, the beneficiary EaP BSO is required to produce a specific report, outlining how the acquired knowledge will be applied in the organisation, including its sustainability effect.

The service is being run in addition to the BSO exchange programme. EU-funded East Invest Business Support Organisation (BSO) Exchange Facility is a benchmarking tool allowing business organisations from the Eastern Partnership countries to learn from their European colleagues through a short term traineeship (of between one and four weeks).

East Invest supports economic development and facilitates regional trade through contributing to the improvement of the business environment, with an emphasis on SMEs and networking.
(EU Neighbourhood Info)