National Convention on MSME Clusters
The foundation was formally launched during this convention. The workshop was supported by Ministry of Small Scale Indudustries (SSI), UNIDO Cluster Development Program and Entreprenuership Development Institute of India. A diverse range of around 60 institutions participated and recommended to focus on Cluster development as a means of regional development with people and poverty alleviation at the center
Cluster Mapping and Strategy of Light Engineering clusters in Bangladesh
Client: International Finance Corporation (IFC)
The Foundation was awarded its first International Project by SouthAsia Enterprise Development Facility, Bangladesh, (a part of International Finance Corporation/World Bank) in 2006 to map clusters in a Sector and to suggest an intervention strategy thereon. The assignment included preparation of a cluster map on engineering clusters in Bangladesh.
FMC developed India’s first Cluster Observatory. The observatory portal provides online access to the information about clusters in India for MSMEs, policy makers, service providers, business membership organizations, banks & financial institutions. It contains a rich database of about 1100 industrial, about 500 handlooms and about 2900 handicraft and micro enterprise clusters in India.
The project ‘Scaling up Sustainable Development of MSME Clusters in India’ seeks to enhance competitiveness of less sustainable MSME clusters together with reduced environmental and social impacts. In order to achieve this overall aim, it also seeks to enable adoption of sustainable environment and social business practices across select foundry clusters, up-scale interventions through Training of Trainers (ToT) and institutionalization, develop and implement voluntary Aggregate Reporting (AR) framework, design, develop and link financial instruments for sustainable production and strengthen policy dialogue and dissemination. The main target group of this project are MSMEs in the foundry clusters located in Batala, Howrah, Jaipur, Jalandhar in the states of Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
In India the concept of cluster development as a tool for promoting MSMEs was promoted by UNIDO in 1996. Since then the acceptance of the approach has proliferated and till date over 20 schemes and programmes have been initiated in India by several Central Government Ministries, State Government, international organizations, development banks and other institutions. Almost 1500 (industrial clusters – 500 and artisanal clusters – 1000 clusters have been supported under such schemes or programmes. Moreover, the areas of support under the cluster development schemes and programmes have widened from classical objective of promoting productivity enhancement to new thematic areas like promoting innovation, fostering business responsibility, promoting inclusive growth, creating market for business development service (BDS) providers, strengthening cluster infrastructure, etc.The objective of this conference was to share international experiences and provide insights for designing effective national and regional cluster focused development policies and implementation frameworks. Such policies and frameworks can help in addressing diverse objectives across different sectors viz. industry, agriculture and services.
