On December 15th 2021 the Chamber of Achaia, Greek partner of MEDSt@rts, successfully organized the first Crossborder Forum in Patras, entitled "Development of a Joint Strategy for a Mediterranean Microfinancing Programme based on Microfinancing Instruments and Support Services, for new Businesses".

The aim of the event was to share updates on microfinance statuses in all partner countries and discuss on the results of the Local Microfinance Forums previously organized by each partner.

After the welcome speeches of Mr Theodoros Tsoumpelis (Host Partner, Chamber of Achaia, General Secretary of the Board of Directors) and Carlo Mannoni (Lead Beneficiary, Fondazione di Sardegna, General Manager), a session of the Forum was dedicated to guest speakers, experts of Chambers’ project Network that provided their experiences and valuable information on microfinance/grant mechanisms establishment and operation. Three speeches were presented:

• "7 years of Microfinance in Greece - Lesson Learned" (Action Finance Initiative, Ms Marisa Antonopoulou, Chief Operations Officer at AFI);
• "Ways to support the viability of new businesses after Microfinance" (The People’s Trust, Mr. Dimitris Kouletsis, Head of Operations);
• "Engagement of local stakeholders to support viability of newborn mSMEs" (NBG Business Seeds, Mr. Spyros Arsenis, Head of Business Innovation Development).

The final part of the event concerned the discussion among the participating experts on the results and proposals presented during the previous sessions of the meeting and the drafting of the final conclusions of the 1st Forum.

The next Forums will be held in March.