Cotecno has gained a great deal of experience in defining strategies aimed at job placement and the creation and management of Small and Medium sized Enterprises (ranging from industrial and tertiary sectors to handicrafts and agricultural ones), through the development of an all-embracing framework (legal, institutional, financial, informational, technological and training) for private sector development and direct assistance to entrepreneurs.
Services are also provided through: dissemination of business culture and entrepreneurship; start-up support in different productive sectors; diversified training; credit lines’ management and technical assistance.

Within this sector, Cotecno has provided technical assistance to various institutions in world-wide locations, among others to:

• the ‘IMC - Industrial Modernisation Centre’ through the EC funded project ‘Implementing a Graduate Resource Programme’ from 2005 to 2006 (an on-the-job training and consultancy project aimed at developing innovative business and upgrading capacity of Egyptian SMEs);
  
• the ‘Ministry of Economy and International Co-operation’ in Egypt through the management from 1996 to 2001 of the PMU in the EC/“Private Sector Development Programme” (approximately 40 million Euros managed to promote the Egyptian Private Sector);
  
• a network of ‘Intermediary Organisations’ in Nicaragua within the EU funded project “Development of small rural production in a dry tropical area” through the management of a 7 million Euros credit line supporting local agricultural producers (1996 – 2002);
  
• the ‘Conferencia Internacional sobre Refugiados, Desplazados y Repatriados de Centro América (CIREFCA)’ in San Salvador through the EC program “Job creation, training and credit programme in the urban informal sector” (1994 - 1999).
  

More recently, Cotecno has been increasing its interest for the promotion of women entrepreneurship by recognizing the importance in supporting and developing active measures meant at promoting self-employment and working insertion of women.
Particular examples are as follows:

• European Social Fund/“WEB Women Enterprise and Business” in Italy (2006 - 2008) and
  
• EC/“Technical assistance for provision of entrepreneurship and management training and consultancy to support women entrepreneurship through training centres and relays” in Turkey (2007 - ongoing).