“The VSE, a regional and national productive organisation: the case of female entrepreneurship” is the theme of a meeting organised at the initiative of “Entrelles”, an association that works at the level of the Souss-Massa-Draa (SMD) region for the promotion, support and accompaniment of female entrepreneurship. This event was organised under the aegis of the Ministry of Industry, Trade, Investment and Digital Economy, in partnership with the Regional Investment Centre (CRI), the National Agency for the Promotion of Small and Medium Enterprises, the German Development Agency and the branch of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (CGEM). The meeting was an opportunity to take stock of the achievements of female-led businesses. Its ambition was the search for promising solutions for the improvement of the development indices of these companies, as well as the optimisation of their performance, their evolution and their productivity. The work of this meeting was articulated around a series of subjects aiming at the improvement of the conditions for the development of female-led businesses. The event also saw the participation of decision-makers and national and international organisations, in the presence of the Wali of the region as well as the Governor of the province of Inezgane-

Ait Melloul. Public institutions and their role in the promotion of female entrepreneurship, international organisations and their contribution to the integration of women into the economic fabric, the role of the financial institution and that of associations, confederations, professional groups and private actors in the flourishing of these companies, constituted the main points raised at the end of the meeting's proceedings. Mohamed Yazid Zellou, Wali of the region and Governor of the Agadir-Idaoutanane prefecture, emphasised during his speech delivered on this occasion the importance that medium, small and micro-enterprises hold in the country's economic fabric, as well as the difficulties they encounter. The smallest enterprise constitutes, he indicated, a pillar of development of the national economy, given its broad contribution to the generation of wealth and employment and, in correlation, to social stability and, also, to the maintenance of national macroeconomic balances. The deficiency that this type of enterprise experiences in terms of financial, organisational and managerial potential was also mentioned, given that most of these entities operate in an informal framework and that only 20% of them are registered and subject to professional taxes.

In a regional context, the Wali thus emphasised that the Souss-Massa-Draa region, thanks to the natural, economic and human assets it possesses and given the perpetual dynamic by which it is distinguished, constitutes fertile ground for the development of this type of enterprise. And this, despite the challenges and difficulties that similar entities experience at the level of other regions of the Kingdom. Among these challenges, we will note access to markets, and the anomalies persisting in terms of management, financing and access to credit.

Salutary support In parallel with the measures taken by the government aimed at supporting these companies to allow them to evolve better, a panoply of pilot and reference initiatives having been taken at the regional level have had a positive impact on their development.

This concerns, in this instance, the financing of projects with a tourist vocation in the rural world by a fund created by the regional council, as well as through the contribution of the SMD Initiatives association and, also, via the efforts deployed in this sense by the CRI, focusing on the orientation and accompaniment of these entities. Let us recall in this context the birth, in the near future, of a nursery that the rural commune of Drarga will be equipped with.