Grant Scheme: Enhancing the Competitiveness of SMEs through Support for Women and Youth Entrepreneurship (Montenegro)

Deadline: 27-Dec-22

The Ministry of Finance – Directorate for Finance and Contracting of the EU Assistance Funds (CFCU) is seeking Proposals for the Grant Scheme Enhancing the Competitiveness of SMEs through Support for Women & Young Entrepreneurs.

This call for proposals is a part of the Annual Action Programme for Montenegro for 2020, which objective is “to support the development of the private sector, particularly encouraging female entrepreneurship and self-employment, and of a knowledge-based economy in Montenegro, in line with the EU acquis.”

Objectives

The global objective of this CfP is to further enhance the competitiveness of MSMEs through financial support for women and youth entrepreneurship.
The specific objective of this CfP is to strengthen the capacities of women entrepreneurs, young entrepreneurs, women owned MSMEs and MSMEs owned by young persons through direct grant support, with the aim to contribute to the economic growth.
The target group of this CfP is micro, small and medium enterprises owned by women and young persons, women entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurs.

Priorities

Project proposals must be in line with at least one of the thematic priorities defined by the Strategy for developing women’s entrepreneurship 2021-2024, Strategy for Development of MSMEs 2018-2022, Youth Strategy 2017-2021 and Smart Specialization Strategy of Montenegro S3 (2019-2024), such as: agriculture and food production; sustainable development and energy; tourism; information and communication technologies; medicine and health services; science and education; new products and services; wood processing; metal processing and list of priorities is not exhaustive.
The priority (ies) of this Call for proposals are:
- Strengthening the internal performances of MSMEs;
- Improvement of innovativeness of MSMEs;
- Support to digital business transformation;
- Support to development of green economy

Funding Information

The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 300,000.00. The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds.
- Indicative allocation of funds by lot:
  - Lot 1 Support to the women owned MSMEs: EUR 150,000.00
  - Lot 2 Support to the MSMEs owned by young persons: EUR 150,000.00
Any grant requested under Lot 1 of this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:
- Minimum amount: EUR 25,000.00
- Maximum amount: EUR 40,000.00
Any grant requested under Lot 2 of this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:
- Minimum amount: EUR 10,000.00
- Maximum amount: EUR 20,000.00

Eligibility Criteria

Lead applicant(s)
- In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
  - Be a legal person and
  - Be profit-making or be non-profit-making organisation and
- Be a specific type of institution, such as:
  - 100% privately owned micro, small or medium-sized enterprise registered at least one (1) year before the submission of the concept note
  - Under Lot 1: be women owned MSME (share of women in the ownership structure is greater than 50% and the ownership structure of the enterprise is not changed in the last 6 months prior to the deadline for the submission of concept note);
  - Under Lot 2: be MSME owned by young person up to 30 years of age at the time of the submission of the Concept Note or
  - innovation and entrepreneurial center, business and technology incubator and technology transfer center as defined by Law on innovation activity (Official Gazette of Montenegro No. 82/2020, Article No. 26, Article No. 27 and Article No. 28 ) or
  - NGOs operating in field of business development, female entrepreneurship, youth entrepreneurship, export promotion, etc.
  - Be established in Montenegro
  - Be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary.
  - Potential applicants may not participate in calls for proposals or be awarded grants if they are in any of the situations;
Co-applicant(s)
- Co-applicants participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the lead applicant.
- Co-applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria as applicable to the lead applicant himself:
  - Co-applicants must sign.
  - If awarded the grant contract, the co-applicant(s) (if any) will become beneficiary(ies) in the action (together with the coordinator).
  - In addition, please note that contracts cannot be awarded to or signed with applicants included in the lists of EU restrictive measures.
Affiliated Entities
- The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entity(ies). Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to co-applicant(s):
  - Control, as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings:
- Entities affiliated to an applicant may hence be:
  - Entities directly or indirectly controlled by the applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the applicant (granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
  - Entities directly or indirectly controlling the applicant (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the applicant;
  - Entities under the same direct or indirect control as the applicant (sister companies).
- Membership, i.e. the applicant is legally defined as a e.g. network, federation, association in which the proposed affiliated entities also participate or the applicant participates in the same entity (e.g. network, federation, association…) as the proposed affiliated entities.

For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3Uxlx36