Promoting Digital Business Skills In The Republic Of Moldova

The Republic of Moldova has made digitalisation a policy priority. The country is currently preparing its Digital Transformation Strategy 2023-30, which will emphasise digital literacy, as well as digital business skills, with a view to improving private sector competitiveness.

The Republic of Moldova (Moldova hereafter) has made digitalisation a policy priority. The country is currently preparing its Digital Transformation Strategy 2023-30, which will emphasise digital literacy, as well as digital business skills, with a view to improving private sector competitiveness. Digitalisation has already brought significant benefits to Moldova, where ICT has been one of the most dynamic sectors over the past years; yet Moldovan firms in non IT sectors remain at the beginning of their digitalisation journey. Skills shortages are a major barrier in that regard, particularly affecting SMEs who encounter more difficulties in attracting and retaining skilled workers, as well as up skilling or re-skilling their workforces. Building on previous OECD work on digitalisation policies, the OECD provided guidance to Moldova throughout 2022 on how to build a conducive ecosystem and set the right policies to further advance the development and uptake of digital business skills among SMEs. This report presents an overview of those issues, looking at 1) the institutional and policy framework; 2) skills assessment and anticipation tools; and 3) SME specific support for digital skills development

The SME Policy Index: Eastern Partner Countries 2024 – Building resilience in challenging times is a unique benchmarking tool to assess and monitor progress in the design and implementation of SME policies against EU and international best practice.

The rapid and ongoing digital transformation of government, economic, and social sectors holds immense potential to improve outcomes across the SDGs for smallholder farmers and rural communities more generally. [Author] However, it is also widely recognized that digitalization alone does not guarantee inclusion. [Author] Rural residents and marginalized groups have the most to gain from digitalization but are also the most at risk of falling further behind due to digital divides. [Author] The resulting paradox may leave rural development actors unsure about how to best approach rural digital transformation. [Author] This report helps rural development practitioners and decision-makers work through this paradox. [Author] It does so by highlighting the factors that lead to digital exclusion, providing evidence regarding how digital divides play out, and providing recommendations on how to improve digital inclusion for rural areas and marginalized groups. [Author]

Digital technologies not only offer a vast potential to enhance firm productivity, they can also help enhance resilience and support economic recovery in times of war. The government has made significant strides in accelerating the digital transformation and has reinforced support for digitalisation since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. While digital technologies have brought significant benefits to the country, Ukraine’s SMEs are yet to fully tap into the potential of digitalisation. Beyond war-related challenges, lack of awareness, digital skills shortages, sectoral specificities, and financial constraints complicate their digital development. The government aims to further promote SME digitalisation and is currently preparing its SME Strategy 2024-27. Throughout 2023, the OECD provided guidance to Ukraine on how to help SMEs leverage digitalisation for productivity, resilience, and recovery. This report presents an overview of the findings, looking at i) ways to strengthen the national and subnational institutional and policy framework for SME digitalisation; ii) avenues for targeted digitalisation support services for SMEs, building on the OECD’s blueprint; and iii) specific ways digitalisation can help SMEs weather war-related challenges.

This report marks the third edition in this series, following assessments in 2012 and 2016. It provides a comprehensive overview of the state of play in the implementation of the ten SBA principles, and monitors progress made since 2016. It also identifies remaining challenges affecting SMEs in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries and provides recommendations to address them based on EU and international good practice examples.

The Republic of Moldova is continuously transforming, directly affected by regional and global events: the rise in the cost of energy and food products, the security crisis in the region created by the aggression of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, the reformation of value chains and even climate change affecting agricultural production. In this extremely difficult context, in addition to the short-term interventions needed to cope with the current crises, the Government has proposed to define a medium- and long-term development vision, in order to strengthen our resilience to future crises and create the basis for a sustainable and inclusive development of the country.