The fifth workshop of the EMGN counter guarantee work group took place online on 23 June 2021 and it involved views from potential stakeholders. The workshop included several presentations on credit- and counter-guarantee schemes and their design considerations and features.

The first panel involved a presentation on the European Fund for Sustainable Development and Guarantees by the European Commission Directorate General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG Near). The second panel discussed the capitalization and commercial interest in counter guarantee mechanism. Participants included representatives from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), The Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank (FMO), European Commission Directorate General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG Near), African Guarantee Fund (AGF), and Vinod Kothari Consultants (VKC).

The Euro-Mediterranean Guarantee Network – EMGN seeks to alleviate the region’s structural constraints for MSMEs to access to finance by gathering guarantee schemes active in the countries of the Euro-Mediterranean.

EMGN is promoted by the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA), the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)