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Good practice Imported

Serbia's Mini, Matching and Collaborative Grants — World Bank-Evaluated SME Co-Financing via RAS

Serbia · Belgrade · See the Serbia profile · See the Belgrade profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 74% 57/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Serbia's RAS ran three World Bank-financed co-financing grant lines for SMEs (2017–2021); a World Bank completion review found 121 funded firms created 844 jobs, though women owned only 13–21% of financed firms — a documented equity gap alongside the growth results.

121
Firms funded (2017–2021)
844
Jobs created (2017–2021)
~€17.1 million
Total disbursed (2017–2021)
26 (13–21% ownership share across calls)
Female-owned firms financed by 2020
Serbia's Mini, Matching and Collaborative Grants — World Bank-Evaluated SME Co-Financing via RAS

Details

Maturity
Discontinued
Promoter
Development Agency of Serbia (RAS), with World Bank financing
Period
2017–2021
Keywords
SME finance, co-financing grants, competitiveness, export promotion

Context

Between 2017 and 2021, the Development Agency of Serbia (RAS) administered three World Bank-financed co-financing grant lines for SMEs — Mini Grants, Matching Grants and a Collaborative Grant Scheme — under a Competitiveness and Jobs Project.

Results

A World Bank completion review found the three programmes disbursed roughly €17.1 million and that 121 funded firms created 844 total jobs, though only 26 enterprises with female owners had been financed by 2020, with women's ownership share across funding calls ranging between 13% and 21%.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Development Agency of Serbia (RAS) grant administrators

Conditions for success

  • layering three grant sizes (Mini, Matching, Collaborative) to match firm scale
  • adding a business-performance diagnostic stage before award decisions in later rounds to better target growth-potential firms

Common failure modes

  • only 26 enterprises with female owners had been financed by 2020, with women's ownership share across funding calls ranging between 13% and 21%
  • no evidence of continued funding after the World Bank project closed in 2021

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

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