How can we advocate forcefully to maintain a business enabling environment amid COVID-19, lockdowns, and changing rules? Associations and chambers of commerce affiliated with CIPE are providing new forms of leadership on this front, as well as services and information, to people around the world. CIPE Executive Director Andrew Wilson and Senior Program Officer Stephen Rosenlund explain how they and partners in numerous countries are leveraging “maximum telework situations” to help micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises stay connected and in business.
Laurence Todd, Director of Research at IDEAS (Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs) in Malaysia, joins host Ken Jaques. Todd visited CIPE's headquarters for an event on Chinese capital flows to Southeast Asian countries in December 2019 to pre-launch a report on the topic co-authored by Todd.
We close out Women's History Month with a podcast with the Women’s Entrepreneurship Product Lead for the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) Gender Secretariat, Heather Mae Kipnis, and CIPE's Director for the Center for Women's Economic Empowerment, Barbara Langley. They discuss IFC's role in supporting stakeholders and clients to close gender gaps in the economy, and doing so in a sustainable way. Heather Mae Kipnis highlights the business case for closing the gender gap and help create more opportunities for women entrepreneurs, and the top 6 challenges women face in business and investment.
This podcast was originally recorded in November 2019.
Dr. Liz David-Barrett, Professor of Governance and Integrity and Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption, University of Sussex, joins Associate Program Officer for CIPE's Anti-Corruption and Governance Center in this podcast. They discuss major trends in the global anti-corruption space and its study, and what corporations can in terms of global leadership. Dr. David-Barrett also talks about her work with "integrity clubs" and their conditions for success.
This week, Carolina Acosta, Regional Representative for the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation (GATF), joins host Ken Jaques and co-host Florent Bakija, Program Officer for GATF. They discuss how trade facilitation can help developing countries like Colombia save millions every year (approx $14.3 million) if the Trade Facilitation Agreement is implemented. They also highlight how the work in Colombia has been a huge success, and how the project can be replicated in countries around the world. The harmonization of customs procedures is a huge opportunity for business and authorities, says Carolina Acosta.
Read the full case study of GATF (and CIPE's) work in Colombia on this project with partner INVIMA: https://www.cipe.org/resources/colombia-making-trade-of-essential-goods-simpler-faster-and-more-cost-effective/
Aisalkyn Botoeva’s work as a sociologist addresses many of CIPE’s focus areas, from women’s entrepreneurship to associations, specifically in Central Asia, she has a lot of experience to share. In this podcast, she will discuss the evolution of women’s entrepreneurship from the 1990s to today in two countries, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. She will analyze the impact of international organizations, governments, as well as women’s own organizations in supporting entrepreneurship, and identify areas for further work.
Deependra Chaulagain is the Director of Operations & Outreach at Samriddhi Foundation where he designs operational systems and oversees outreach programs. He joined Samriddhi Foundation in 2007 and is also a former President of Liberal Youth of South Asia (LYSA). He holds experience of designing and executing several national and international programs in youth politics and entrepreneurship.
Syeed Ahamed is a public policy analyst and CEO of the public policy think-tank— Institute of Informatics and Development (IID) that aims to make policy public.
Last year, CIPE began the first of a multi-phase program with IID. In the first phase, CIPE and IID selected 101 young people through an intensely competitive process to participate in this program. IID ensured participants represented diverse communities as well as local leadership from existing youth clubs, thereby maximizing the reach and impact of the program.
This year’s program focuses on invigorating the post-election reform agenda by giving a voice to young people from across the country and ensuring that national-level reformers are responsive to the concerns of youth.
Tajikistan, a country of approximately 9 million, is the poorest of the post-Soviet states. Remittances from labor migrants – over 1 million of whom travel to Russia each year for work – make up roughly 30% of GDP. In this context, Western narratives often neglect the business environment in Tajikistan for foreign companies as well as local entrepreneurs. As the former Executive Director of the AmCham and a specialist in digital and startup development, Ilhom Aliev is uniquely positioned to discuss the role of American and other Western companies in the country, explain the challenges local businesses face, and spotlight encouraging developments in the local entrepreneurial ecosystem such as a locally-funded startup accelerator.
Jaroslav Romanchuk is a leading free-market economist, advocate for the private sector, and voice for democracy throughout Eastern Europe and Eurasia, particularly in Belarus. As a longtime CIPE partner, he has built the capacity of business organizations to advocate reforms in challenging environments and helped CIPE to identify lessons applicable around the world.
This podcast focuses on Jaroslav’s work in Belarus, involvement with CIPE in Uzbekistan, and global trends to identify lessons applicable to those working in challenging environments.
This week on Democracy That Delivers, Zia Banday, the Joint Executive Director of PRIME Institute, a public policy research organization and think tank, discusses the subject of democratic governance reform in Pakistan. He highlights PRIME's work in assessing the role of municipalities in facilitating ease of doing business for SMEs and MEs in Pakistan.
This week on Democracy That Delivers, we are joined once again by Jaime Arteaga, CIPE's Country Representative in Colombia. Since July 2018, CIPE has been working with Jaime and local partners in Colombia, Asocentro and Consejo Gremial Nacional, on a project to increase private investment in zones transitioning from conflict. Jaime speaks about how CIPE adapted the project strategy to changing local conditions and share success stories and lessons learned as the project is ending.
Priscilla Clapp joins us on CIPE's Democracy That Delivers podcast this week. She is currently a senior advisor to the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Asia Society, and is a retired Minister-Counselor in the U.S. Foreign Service.
Host Ken Jaques asks her to share some stories on her insightful career spanning some of America's most turbulent times for arms control during the Cold War, and her experience working in the Asia region.
This week we are joined by John Zemko, Regional Director for LAC at CIPE, and Julia Pomares , who has been the executive director of the Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC) since December 2015.
CIPE and CIPPEC worked together during the 2011 presidential elections in Argentina to hold the first presidential debates in the country. During this most recent election, we saw the candidates debate each other twice. Results aside, and at a time when we are seeing protests break out all across the region, she discussed what we can take away from this election, especially regarding the state of democracy in Argentina.
This week on Democracy That Delivers we are joined by Narayan Adhikari from Nepal's Accountability Lab. They discuss his work in developing a number of innovative tools for accountability and open government, including a pioneering television show and movement called Integrity Icon; and the Mobile Citizen Helpdesks which have ensured citizen voices have been been fed into plans for $4.4 billion of international spending after Nepal's devastating earthquake. The Integrity Icon is a global program that now runs in 10 different countries.
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, announced a briefing analyzing corruption in the Balkans on December 3rd, 2019, titled:
IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY
Corruption as a Brake on Balkan Recovery
We are joined by Igor Novakovic, Research Director, International and Security Affairs Centre in Serbia, and Misha Popovikj, Project Coordinator and Researcher at the Institute for Democracy Societas Civilis Skopje in North Macedonia. They discuss CIPE's work on corrosive capital and the what they have done with CIPE since the launch of the report: "Channeling the Tides - Protecting Democracies Amid a Flood of Corrosive Capital."
Learn more about the event here, and watch it on Facebook Live.
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, announced a briefing analyzing corruption in the Balkans on December 3rd, 2019, titled:
IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY
Corruption as a Brake on Balkan Recovery
We are joined by Igor Stojanovic, Researcher with the Center for Civic Initiatives in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Martin Vladimirov, Analyst with the Economics Program at the Center for the Study of Democracy in Bulgaria. They discuss CIPE's work on corrosive capital and the what they have done with CIPE since the launch of the report: "Channeling the Tides - Protecting Democracies Amid a Flood of Corrosive Capital."
Learn more about the event here, and watch it on Facebook Live.
We are joined this week by Randall Kempner, Executive Director of the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, also known as ANDE. He and CIPE's Director of Knowledge Management, Kim Bettcher, discuss ANDE's strategy over the past decade since its founding in 2009, and what its new strategy will be in the next decade.
"What I and my team want to make sure, is that those people that are supporting entrepreneurs are benefiting from the best practice, the best knowledge and the connections so they are more effective at what they do, and then we want the world to embrace small and growing businesses as a tool to support the development and attainment of the sustainable development goals," says Randall Kempner about ANDE's goal.
Listen to the full interview today!
Due to technical difficulties at the CIPE studio, last week's Democracy That Delivers podcast is being published this week.
This week, Martina Hrvolova, Program Officer for Europe and Eurasia at CIPE, is our host. She is joined by Josh Rudolph, the Fellow for Malign Finance at the Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund. They discuss the issue of party financing from foreign sources, focusing on some country examples and channels, including shell companies or subsidiaries of foreign companies in recipient countries. He also introduces ASD’s influence tracker - a depository meant to expose the Russian government’s foreign interference activities in more than 40 transatlantic countries from 2000 to the present across the five tools ASD tracks. These tools are: information operations, cyberattacks, political and social subversion, strategic economic coercion, and malign finance.
We are joined this week by consortium members of the Women And Girls Empowered program (WAGE) to introduce this global programming consortium. The mission of WAGE is to advance the status of women and girls around the world. The program is funded by the U.S Department of State's Office for Global Women's Issues. The consortium is led by the American Bar Association's Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) in very close partnership with CIPE, Grameen Foundation, and Search for Common Ground.The primary goal is to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations around the world to work holistically advancing the status of women. Guests include:
To enhance the capacity of Macedonian youth to engage in entrepreneurship, CIPE, William Davidson Institute (WDI) of the University of Michigan, and Youth Educational Forum (YEF) have partnered to develop a comprehensive youth entrepreneurship training program for North Macedonia. Since its pilot in 2017, the program supports and encourages youth entrepreneurship and private sector employment across various sectors of the country’s economy.
We are joined by Stephen Brand, Entrepreneurship Consultant of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, Martina Hrvolova, Program Officer for Europe and Eurasia at CIPE and Kim Bettcher, Director for Knowledge Management at CIPE.
What pathways can one take to get a job in international development? This week, we hear from three staff members who took very different routes to come to CIPE. From interests in governance, private sector and CSOs, or regional passions, CIPE provides all kinds of opportunities.
This week on Democracy That Delivers, we are joined by Martina Hrvolova and Ken Jaques. Martina shares a glimpse of her upcoming presentation at the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) 2019 Western Balkans Regional Conference. They discuss CIPE's approach to identifying and combatting corrosive capital through different governance structures, as countries are at different stages in their development, and the steps they are taking to recognize the threat.