On November 15-16, 2010, REC Caucasus organized the First Regional Workshop in the frames of the project "Promoting Competitiveness and Efficiency of Small and Medium Enterprise Through Cleaner Production in the South Caucasus" in hotel “Sheraton Metekhi Palace”, Tbilisi, Georgia. The Project is implemented with the financial support of Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment of the Netherlands.

The overall objective of this project is to contribute to sustainable development in the South Caucasus and minimize environmental impact of industrial sector by stimulating small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) to take steps towards cleaner production (CP). The objective will be reached via increasing SME’s capability in the preparation of financial documentation for CP projects. The increased possibility for getting the financial resources from local and international financial institutions will improve SME’s operation capabilities to become more economically efficient and environmentally friendly.

Three national trainings (one in each country) were held in countries of South Caucasus. The main aim of national training courses was to introduce to the participants the concepts of CP, types of CP action, CP tools and techniques, performance audit, impact assessment, CP audit, tools and methods used for CP auditing and other useful topics, supported by examples from international experience. Representatives of 15 SMEs in each country participated in the national trainings.

The basic objective of the First Regional Workshop was the practical work on the preparation of financial documents, in particular preparation of documents for CP projects; preparation of sample calculations for investment needs; preparation of CP Audit report; preparation of financial appraisal documents.

During the two-day workshop representatives of 15 SMEs from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia made the presentations over the CP and EE issues, identified problems on their enterprises, and together with other participants searched for ways to solve detected problems.

The 2nd Regional Workshop will be organized in the end of the year. SMEs should finalize the development of the project pipelines together with the regional and national experts of the project for the further submission to the donor organizations and financial institutions.