The e-Trade Bridge Kick-Off Meeting provides a national platform where strategy and policy makers, multiplier organizations and enterprises can discuss and plan for practical actions needed to take advantage of the new opportunities created by information and communications technologies.
The objectives of the meeting are:
Raise awareness and develop a shared understanding of the state of e-trade in a country amongst strategy makers, multipliers and enterprises,
Support the development of new networks and facilitate dialogue amongst the stakeholders,
Enhance the ability of the parties concerned to a) carry out national assessment of e-trade; b) identify national priorities and develop concrete actions to improve the country’s e-trade capability.
The e-preparedness report includes a country’s e-balance sheet. This identifies the country’s assets and liabilities relating to information and communication technologies (ICT), and assesses the e-facilitated trade risks and opportunities. The report also draws a map of a country, identifying who is doing what in terms of ‘e’, and suggests action points for the improvement of ICT usage in the country.
The country e-preparedness reports form the basis for the Strategists' Training component of the e-Trade Bridge for SMEs programme and it is the input document for the Kick-off Meeting.
The programme begins with awareness raising and stakeholder briefings in country, in cooperation with a partner institution. During the meeting, a small group of national experts drawn from the government, multiplier organizations and the business community discuss the findings of the e-preparedness report. At the same time a national website to support the implementation of the initiative is launched. The meeting features a series of presentations and discussions. It allows for exchange among members of the private sector, support network and strategy makers and culminates in the development of priority action points, at least some of which should be implementable in the short term.
Whilst the meeting has a national focus in order to be practical and grounded in local realities, a wider goal of the initiative is to develop international networks among strategy makers, multiplier organizations and businesses interested in developing national capacity to e-enable the SMEs.
Following the meeting, the report is finalized, the website updated and information about the event and follow up activities disseminated.