Economic Development

Sustainable economic development is essential for the development of our target countries, which is why our overarching objective for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia is their integration into the EU’s internal market and, for other priority countries, economic interconnectivity with Europe and increased mutual, regional and global trading.

We have the following objectives:

1. to increase the competitiveness of the target countries in the global digital economy by increasing the importance of economy, innovation, and technology; 
2. to support the twin transition of developing digital and environmentally friendly solutions that create new opportunities and contribute to increasing the adaptive capacity of societies and groups to technological and climate risks.

To achieve this, we aim to multiply the resources committed fivefold, using funds allocated from the national budget for leverage or own contributions when necessary, with the help of partners, donors, and public and private sector supporters.

We are focused on:

• Analysing economic and business environments and developing regulatory frameworks and the public sector capacity to foster entrepreneurship, economic development and the twin transition.
• Supporting export and digital/green capabilities of SMEs, including developing skills, digitising processes or improving the capacity of relevant influencing bodies (umbrella organisations, etc.) to do so. It is particularly important for us to develop the entrepreneurial and commercial capabilities of women, young people and at-risk groups.
• Supporting the development of start-ups and their support ecosystem, developing a global start-up community, and collaboration platforms between venture capitalists and start-ups (e.g. Cleantech’s virtual community, sTARTUp Day, Latitude59, Garage48, etc.).
• Supporting research development and start-up entrepreneurship to create solutions for reducing environmental problems.

In all we do, we aim to raise awareness of the opportunities and goals of sustainable development and development cooperation in Estonia and our target country organisations. In Africa, we look for opportunities to participate in twin transition projects in our priority countries. As we find additional opportunities, we will strengthen our capability to transfer Estonia’s knowledge, skills and technologies concerning climate change adaptation, biodiversity restoration and the green transition to target countries.