Business support services in Georgia

This technical note was written to support The Rural SMEs Development Project (RSMEDP) in Georgia.

The RSMEDP seeks to increase rural income and employment through sustained access to finance for rural SMEs through both supply and demand-side interventions. This requires enhancing the form and relevance of finance products on offer whilst strengthening the financial literacy and business capacities of rural SMEs through improved access to quality Business Support Services (BSS) from national agencies, business associations and consultancies.

This note is intended to provide an update of the project’s understanding of the Business Support Services (BSS) market system. It is a foundational reference document that serves to clarify the consortium’s initial understanding of the BSS system in Georgia. The note provides the consortium’s conceptual framework for understanding business support services systems, the research framework used to understand the BSS market system in Georgia, an overview of the research conducted to date, a mapping of the market system, and identifies initial findings including a SWOT analysis.