Committee on SMEs and Entrepreneurship (CSMEE) Mr. Martin Godel
1. What is the mission and mandate of your Committee? SMEs play a central role in both OECD and emerging-market economies. In the OECD, they account for 60% of total employment and 50-60% of national value added. As such, governments have placed increasingly more importance on the issues of SMEs and entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic hit SMEs and Entrepreneurs particularly hard and this has only increased the attention that governments have placed on SMEs and Entrepreneurship policies. Reflecting this critical importance, the OECD Council decided to elevate what was previously a Working Party on SME and Entrepreneurship to a Committee level. The revision of the mandate provided an opportunity for the new Committee to build on the achievements of the WPSMEE and establish high-level priorities that meet emerging challenges and broad strategic goals. The revised mandate recognises the ability of the CSMEE in fostering greater horizontality and coherence, as well as a more systematic consideration of different populations of entrepreneurs and businesses in policy-making. The revised mandate also highlights recent developments in the areas of digitalisation, globalisation, demographic shifts and climate change, including the challenges and the opportunities they create for SMEs and entrepreneurs, as well as the shocks generated by a number of crises, in particular the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, The Committee on SMEs and Entrepreneurship (CSMEE) provides a platform for OECD’s work on policy analysis, policy indicators, statistics, and recommendations to help Members fully unleash the potential of SMEs and entrepreneurship, boost productivity, innovation and inclusion and address challenges in access to finance and trade, and grasp the opportunities of digitalisation and the green transition. 2. You have been designated Committee Chair. What is your background and what has convinced you to take up this post? How do you consider your background and experience contribute to such a role and function? My experience at the OECD dates back to my early career when I was regularly attending the Trade Committee as Assistant to the Delegate for Trade Agreements, Ambassador Luzius Wasescha - then President of the OECD Trade Committee. From 2011 to 2021, I attended as Swiss Delegate the Committee of Industry, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), which I served later as Vice-Chair and member of the Bureau. Starting in 2017, I also attended the meetings of the Working Party on SMEs and Entrepreneurship (WPSMEE) and took a more active leadership role as its Chair in 2018. This followed the active engagement of Switzerland in the SME Ministerial Conference, which took place in Mexico City in 2018. Since 2011, I am responsible for Switzerland’s SME Policy Division at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). All the mentioned stations in my working life helped me a lot in my current function as Chair of the CSMEE. Last but not least, I accompanied and led as Chairman the procedure to elevate the Working Party to a full
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