Brussels, 26 June 2020/OACPS: Secretary-General of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), H.E. Georges Rebelo Pinto Chikoti, in his welcome comments to a webinar organised in the context of World MSME Day, reaffirmed the commitment of theOACPS Secretariat to support the private sector.

The Webinar, titled, “COVID-19 Crisis: Mitigating its impact on OACPS MSMEs, identifying and leveraging opportunities”, aimed to enable OACPS MSMEs and other private stakeholders to understand the steps to be taken to protect their business, reduce risks and minimise the economic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis and to anticipate the redeployment of their industrial and commercial activities in the context of the crisis.

Reflecting on the negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the more than 50 million registered MSMEs in the OACPS regions, the Secretary-General spoke of the critical importance of the MSMEs to the socioeconomic transformation of the OACPS regions, and highlighted the work in this regard, of the Joint Private Sector Development (PSD) Framework – a joint project of the OACPS and the European Commission, under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) which is financed to the amount of€600 million.

Click HERE for the full version of the Speech.