Improving the SMEs Access to Trade Finance DRAFT
in the OIC Member States
84
4.2. Recommendations
There are numerous opportunities to address the challenge of enhancing SME access to trade
finance, some relatively immediate, some that have significant dependencies and will likely
involve longer timeframes for planning, execution and for the impact or outcomes to be felt
among OIC Member States. The observation linking trade and logistics infrastructure
development to the question of cost of and access to trade finance is one such scenario.
Approach and High-Level Considerations
Recommendation 1: Undertake complementary short and long term initiatives to
facilitate SME access to trade finance
There are opportunities to undertake long-term policy and financial sector development
initiatives that will ultimately facilitate access to trade and supply chain finance for SMEs,
however, these longer-term opportunities ought not to preclude more immediate action aimed
at addressing this objective.
The establishment of country-level guarantee programs, of the development and delivery of
bank-targeted training programs around trade finance can be accomplished with limited
coordination, limited resources, and the support of international institutions such as the IDB
and its various affiliates.
The approach to developing a strategy around SME access to trade finance should include
multiple work streams, some aiming at immediate progress and at medium and longer-term
opportunities with more complex dependencies and a more complex coordination effort
across OIC Member States. The achievement of short-term opportunities and objectives ought
not to be hampered by the complexities of opportunities that will require longer-term effort.
The opportunity to create a pool funding aimed at supporting trade finance ought not to be
delayed pending the full alignment of financial regulatory requirements across OIC Member
States
The improvement of access to trade finance for SMEs should include parallel and independent
streams of activity, one short-term, aimed at creating immediate value, and ideally involving
few external dependencies and a second linking to the broader context, including to longer-
term efforts in infrastructure development and enhancement. Opportunities to generate
immediate progress and benefit ought not to be hampered by the existence of equally
legitimate but longer-term activity which will demand greater coordination, more stakeholder
consultation and by definition, a larger number of dependencies to be managed.
This recommendation is about process, and about the advisability of managing multiple,
concurrent and independent streams of activity aimed at generating demonstrable progress
and value in the short term.
The advantage of such an approach is intuitively clear: it allows for the achievement of early
successes, the possibility of devising tailored priorities for each OIC Member State, and reduces
the risk of unduly accelerating longer-term initiatives to accomplish the more immediately
achievable outcomes.