“Path to URC2025: One Year of Partnership and Progress in SME Resilience”

“Path to URC2025: One Year of Partnership and Progress in SME Resilience” was the slogan for the 6th coordination meeting of the Small and Medium-sized Business Resilience Alliance, held in Kyiv.

The event was a key stage in the preparations for the Ukraine Recovery Conference – Rome 2025.

Andrii Hapon, Chairperson of the Management Board of the Business Development Fund, took part in the panel discussion.

In particular, he noted that the BDF had recently presented its updated mandate.

This was made possible by the successful implementation of MSME support programs. During the full-scale invasion, the Fund launched and successfully implemented 17 new programs and attracted nearly €800 million in international support. This would not have been possible without the participation of international partners who joined the Fund and support Ukrainian business.

The Fund expresses its gratitude to a group of international partners, including GIZ Ukraine, the German Government, the EU, KfW, Norad, UNDP, the World Bank and the Luxembourg Development Agency.

Andriy Hapon also noted that the expansion of the Fund’s powers opens up even greater opportunities for it to find mechanisms to support business.

Together with GIZ, the Fund has already begun developing an IT platform that will be completely transparent and through which entrepreneurs will be able to apply to participate in all financial support programs without human intervention.

The event was organized by the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine and the Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ).