TIRANA - USAID/Albania and Yunus Social Business Balkans (YSB Balkans) have started a three-year $3.2 million public-private partnership aiming to support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular social businesses[1] in Albania. Today, USAID/Albania’s Country Representative, Marcus Johnson, Yunus Social Business’ Program Director, Daniel Nowack, and YSB Balkans’ Regional Director, Shkelzen Marku, welcomed young entrepreneurs at E Jona Café in Tirana to publically announce the partnership at YSB Balkans’ “Speed Networking and Partnership Building” event. The event was an opportunity for entrepreneurs to network, build partnerships,  and share ideas among major startup ecosystem actors in Albania, including startup community builders, ecosystem supporters (USAID, UNDP, Swisscontact-SECO, AIDA, etc.), and successful Albanian entrepreneurs.

This partnership builds on the MoU signed between U. S. Agency for International Development and YSB Global Initiatives, in July 2013, to work together to promote entrepreneurship and the development of “social businesses” in vulnerable and underserved communities around the world and to collaborate on the development of social business incubator funds in a targeted set of developing countries.