Over the past decade export-led trade, increased domestic marketing, and attracting investment have become vital to efforts to increase economic growth. Successful trade and investment promotion require a positive legal and policy framework and institutions capable of implementing this agenda. It also requires a business community with the knowledge and skills to take advantage of this enabling environment. IBI's broad experience with policy, capacity building, and business development service provision addresses these key areas.

Enabling Environment.

IBI implemented the USAID-funded Equity and Growth through Economic Research project (EAGER/Trade) to accelerate economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa through demand-driven policy initiatives identified by public and private leaders. IBI designed a consultative process and underlying research approach that successfully produced sound research results used by decision-makers in fourteen countries to improve policy and accelerate economic growth. Working with African partners we conducted the following studies

• Trade policy reform in Africa
• Tanzania's Precious Minerals Boom: Issues in Mining and Marketing, research paper by Lucie C. Phillips
• Foreign and Local Investment: Which leads and which follows? Case studies on Mauritius, Kenya and Uganda
• Ghana-Cross-Border Trade Issues, research report by by Gayle Morris and John Dadson

Over a five-year period IBI co-organized Africa-wide research conferences reviewing the 114 studies conducted throughout the continent under this cooperative agreement. It benefited from rich insights produced by the hundreds of international researchers involved. Find a selection of the results and approaches in Lucie C Phillips (President of IBI) and Diery Seck, eds. Fixing African Economies: Policy Research for Development (Lynne Rienner, 2004).

Capacity Building.

A major impediment to trade in Africa is that countries have built their trade policy on competing with their neighbors for trade rather than cooperating to create more trade. This led to complex tariff schedules. Generally the dominant country of a region set its tariffs high. Neighboring countries would then set their tariffs lower, hoping to funnel some trade through their ports. Large regional markets, however, are much more attractive to investors and offer better growth opportunities to local firms. IBI has worked since 2001 with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) to promote a regional approach to trade.

Capacity building is also important for basic processes. IBI works with customs offices to streamline procedures, upgrade equipment and software, and adapt to World Customs Organization standards. The results improve the capacity of customs offices to eliminate inefficient and arbitrary processes that make importation costly and slow. In Benin, for example, with MCC financing, IBI conducted a thorough review of customs operational, procedural, legal, risk management, and infrastructure performance to bring them in line with international best practices as adapted to the country's specific realities.

Business Development Services.

The USAID-funded TradeMali project set Malian mango export records three years running, organized the first value chain organization for potatoes, and championed a storage and marketing scheme which earned predominantly female small rice and maize traders profit increases exceeding 20 percent. IBI provided technical assistance in the areas of business development services, communications, and gender mainstreaming. The IBI communications specialist, a Malian woman, facilitated "potato days" meetings which assembled value chain participants from public and private sectors who analyzed the previous campaign and planned the upcoming season. A similar "mango days" exercise based on an IBI-conducted gender mainstreaming analysis noted barriers to access for Malian women along the value chain.