SME and Entrepreneurship Policy Assessment and Recommendations for Poland

The central issues Poland needs to address are: i) developing a strategic policy design and building coherence of the institutional structure for both formulating small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) and entrepreneurship policies and programmes and ii) delivering support. The starting point should be the affirmation of the lead and co-ordinating role of a single, appropriately resourced, ministry for SME and entrepreneurship policies. This should be accompanied by the reconstitution of an explicit strategic framework for SMEs and entrepreneurship to ensure coherence, consistency and comprehensive coverage of a broader set of innovation and entrepreneurship issues. The process of developing the strategic framework for SMEs and entrepreneurship also requires better co-ordination among policy-making bodies. At the national level, this should involve an inter-ministerial council, under the Prime Minister, to co-ordinate policy formulation. Priorities for substantive policy action co-ordinated through this strategic framework concern improving framework conditions in the economy building capacity for entrepreneurship support in infrastructure and institutions streamlining support delivery processes better co-ordinating policy support at all levels reinforcing the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development’s focus on supporting enterprise development and making programme design and delivery of support more effective, including by strengthened policy evaluation.