Macedonia: A market system that leaves no one behind

Two national programme officers at the Swiss embassy in Skopje explain how SDC-supported economic initiatives are benefiting the most marginalised and vulnerable groups.

Economic development is a relatively new focus of Switzerland’s cooperation strategy with Macedonia. Several SDC-supported market-based solutions aim to benefit some of the most vulnerable groups. One of these is «Our Good Earth», the first organic buyers’ cooperative in Macedonia. In 2015, it won the Macedonian Social Impact Award for its innovative approach. Lilian Kandikjan, a national programme officer (NPO) at the Swiss embassy in Skopje explains: «Our Good Earth won the Social Impact Award thanks to its unique community-supported agriculture and food sovereignty model. With this approach, consumers themselves get involved in supporting small-scale farmers with farming, distribution and financial risk sharing in the country’s most remote rural areas. In addition, the cooperative gives farmers direct access to Skopje’s organic food market where they can sell their products at 30% higher prices.»

Employment opportunities for Roma

Other important Swiss cooperation initiatives in the Western Balkans focus on promoting the inclusion of the Roma community. Last year alone, the SDC’s support helped a thousand vulnerable persons, including Roma, become gainfully employed. Mentoring played an important part because it helped representatives from the Roma community gain access to existing employment measures or advance their skills through training and internships.

Aneta Damjanovska, another NPO at the Swiss embassy in Skopje, stresses, «Mentoring was a key success factor. It was introduced to allow Roma to get the help they needed to find a job. Self-employment and employment in high-skilled professions such as ICT, dentistry and law were well promoted. Macedonia’s National Employment Agency has since adopted the successful approach and opened it to all vulnerable groups.»