The goal of the USAID Central Asia Future Growth Initiative (FGI) Project is to increase employment and jobs through increased private productivity and competitiveness in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
As one of the three components of this 5-year multi-country Project, JC&A has been working on strengthening the business-enabling environment to enable business growth and job creation in target sectors. Its role and responsibilities included:
- Furnish LTTA and STTA, both international and regional, by program demand as specified by the COP and Program Director
- Provide technical assistance to support initial and ongoing political economy analysis and understanding of political and institutional factors that impact business expansion to inform program activities
- Work with key stakeholders, public entities, and related parties to identify opportunities for regulatory reform, streamlining, and advocacy that targets constraints to growth that can be addressed to increase competitiveness and job creation in target sectors.
- Provide country-specific and regional guidance and expertise about the above-identified opportunities related to regulatory streamlining and policy advocacy approaches, as well as best international practices in regulatory streamlining and best practices mainly related to WTO and post-accession implementation, negotiation, and implementation of trade facilitation agreements, and participation in other international agreements that will have a positive impact on job growth.
- As the first deliverable, JC&A prepared between September 2019 and January 2020 five Political Economy Analysis (PEA) of the five countries based on extensive data collection, including more than 40 meetings and interviews with relevant business and government stakeholders in the participating countries. Each PEA report provided stakeholders mapping and specific recommendations for working on key critical sectors such as information and communication technology, tourism, food and beverages, textile, and garments.
In 2020 -2022, JC&A delivered regulatory reforms to promote the Light Industry sector in Kazakhstan and the e-Commerce regulatory framework for Uzbekistan, capital markets in Tajikistan, regulatory processes in Uzbekistan, and business environment improvements in Turkmenistan.
Central Asia, USAID, under contract to Palladium International, 2019-2024
