All Serbian Mentors Meeting organized by Development Agency of Serbia and Japan International Cooperaton Agency

All Serbian Mentors Meeting was organized by Development Agency of Serbia (RAS) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) with the aim of increasing the capacities of mentors as well as improving the mentoring service they provide. Opening remarks were given by the director of the Sector for International Cooperation in the Development Agency of Serbia, Mrs. Ana Žegarac, and the leader of the group of consultants who are implementing the project "Establishment and promotion of mentoring services for SME in the countries of the Western Balkans, Phase 2, 2017-2020" Mr. Takashi Kimura.

With the support of a Japanese expert, the mentors discussed the methods of promoting mentoring as support that is useful to each small or medium-sized company, exchanging experiences in the field of Company Diagnosis, discussing the tools they use when providing the service, and advising younger colleagues about the problems they face.

There are 58 certified mentors in Serbia. 20 of them are actively involved in providing training activities for new mentors in the countries of the region (in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia).

The mentoring service is a very important form of support for small and medium-sized enterprises, implemented by certified mentors who have professional experience in working with small and medium-sized enterprises, practically and theoretically trained with the support of tools and knowledge of experts from Japan.

So far, 2.000 SMEs in Serbia have received mentoring services, 90% of them pointed out that with the help of mentors, they improved their business in the form of increasing profits or other forms of business improvement.