A high-level policy dialogue held on 15 May 2016 at the Prime Minister’s Office took stock of the existing initiatives on entrepreneurship development in Bangladesh and discussed the prospect for further expansion.

The discussions focused on the Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) model that has been developed by International Labour Organization (ILO) and is being implemented in more than one hundred countries. ILO, through its B-SEP projects, has already trained 16 SIYB trainers in the country.

The event was jointly organized by the Access to Information project (A2i), ILO’s Canadian-funded Bangladesh Skills for Employment and Productivity (B-SEP) Project, and the European Union (EU) funded INSPIRED project. Amongst the participants were Mr. Anir Chowdhury, Policy Advisor of the Prime Minister’s Office, Mr. Ali Sabet, Team Leader of INSPIRED Project, Mr. Gagan Rajbhandari, Deputy Country Director of ILO, Mr. Kabir Bin Anwar, Director General (administration) at PM’s office. Mr. Cezar Dragutan and Mr. Francis De Silva of the BSEP project, Ms. Eva Majurin, ILO Senior Enterprise Specialist, Mr. Safiqul Islam, of the SME Foundation and Professor Faruque Ahmed, e-Learning Specialist of the a2i program.