UNIDO, UNDP launch “Lebanon Export Academy” in support of MSMEs in agri-food and agriculture sector

UNIDO, UNDP launch “Lebanon Export Academy” in support of MSMEs in agri-food and agriculture sector

NNA - UNIDO and UNDP launched the “Lebanon Export Academy”, the first-of-its-kind in Lebanon, calling on Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the agri-food and agriculture sector to apply to the academy.

The academy equips women and men-led MSMEs and Cooperatives in Lebanon with the required know-how and practical export skills to scale up their operations and foster their readiness to export. As an initial phase, the academy will provide training to 70 MSMEs and Cooperatives, of which 40 are women-led businesses.

Companies will have access to flexible learning schemes adapted to their needs and schedules. Multiple choices are offered from in-person and online classes to self-paced courses, covering export-related topics including export plan write-up, market research, export documentation, and export prices (from identifying export costs to setting a competitive price to sell products), among other topics.

Lebanon is undergoing an unprecedented economic and financial crisis classified by the World Bank as “one of the worst the world has seen in the past 150 years”. This breakdown aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has incurred heavy damages on the business ecosystem and the labor market in Lebanon. Since October 2019, 79% of firms reduced their sales by 69% and small firms bore a bigger