Serbia Competitiveness and Jobs

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The objective of the Competitiveness and Jobs Project for Serbia is to improve the effectiveness and coordination of selected public programs to alleviate constraints to competitiveness and job creation, including investment and export promotion, innovation, active labor market programs, labor intermediation, and activation of social assistance beneficiaries. There are three components to the project, the first component being policy planning, monitoring, and coordination. This component supports the implementation of the Borrower’s program for policy planning, monitoring, and coordination (PPMC) through developing and piloting an inter-ministerial PPMC system in support of competitiveness and jobs reforms (see DLI 1). This will also include development of individual planning and monitoring frameworks at the ministry level (to feed into the inter-ministerial PPMC system), and the piloting of the PPMC system, including through semi-annual progress reports and annual performance review reports with inputs from each participating ministry. The second component is the investment and export promotion. This component supports implementation of the Borrower’s program for investment and export promotion through (see DLI 2): developing and adopting a strategic framework and overall action plan for investment and export promotion, including restructuring the MoE investment and export promotion agencies, and improving the Borrower’s investment and export promotion programs and services. Finally, the third component is the innovation. This component supports of implementation of the Borrower’s program for innovation through: supporting the operations of the innovation fund and its matching grants program; supporting the Technology Transfer Facility (TTF) service lines at the innovation fund; and undertaking strategic planning for institutional reform of the public research and development sector.