Micro, Small and Medium enterprises are considered as an effective development tool that represents the backbone of the economy in developing and developed countries. SME projects play a vital role in supporting economic growth and achieving sustainable development. These projects have also proven a great success as an appropriate mechanism for implementing the self-employment policy for entrepreneurs including recent graduates and job seekers, which makes it necessary to give entrepreneurs the necessary attention, motivate them, and provide them with the knowledge and necessary skills to establish new projects and/or developing existing projects, in addition to facilitating their access to financing and non-financing services. It has also become necessary to provide institutional support services to financial and non-financial institutions working in the SMEs field. With this regard, the Arab Planning Institute directs its interventions to favour creativity, innovation and value-added creation in establishing, building, operating and developing SMEs projects. To this end, API allocates a substantial part of its training, advisory and research activities to entrepreneurship and SMEs filed, particularly through its SMEs Center, which was established in 2014 for this purpose.
For instance, API offers many specialized and weekly training programs and workshops through its SMEs Center (11 specialized programs, 37 weekly training programs and 50 short training workshops) targeting entrepreneurs and sponsoring and financing agencies and institutions.