Sustainable Microenterprise and Resilient Transformation (SMART)

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Building on the Sustainable Enterprise Project (SEP), Sustainable Micro-enterprise and Resilient Transformation (SMART) project will support microenterprises in agribusiness, manufacturing, and service sectors. The delivery model will scale up the effective mobilization of natural clusters of micro-enterprises based on the positive lessons learned from SEP. Most importantly this project will further formalize resource use efficiency, cleaner production (RECP), ecological symbiosis, enhance natural capital and decrease pollution, particularly plastics and other industrial waste, through the integration of digital and green technologies into institutional capacity and operational design. The proposed project would cover all 64 districts, doubling the potential number of ME clusters, with a strategic focus on: more environmentally stressed geographic locations; addressing growing, or growth potential MEs; and sectors with greater opportunity to abate current and future pollution impacts. As SEP covered a small segment within a large cluster, the new project would continue working with clusters from SEP, to assure financial and environmental sustainability for MEs who received support under SEP to grow further. The project would focus on the introduction of energy efficiency measures and reduction of the environmental risks caused through hazardous waste, water, and air pollution. It will promote through a mix of grant and financing, common energy and environmental infrastructure such as small-scale effluent treatment plants, cooling technologies, combined heat and power units, and material recovery facilities (including plastics and other recycling); also, it will support introduction of energy-efficient innovative technologies as high-efficiency motors, variable-frequency drives, and smart boilers; waste heat recovery systems; and improved combustion processes.