FIRMA Quarterly Report #6 - 2011

The purpose of the project is to support enterprise competitiveness in selected value chains of the tourism, wood, and light manufacturing sectors of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the process advancing the country's ability to meet the Copenhagen Economic Criteria for accession to the European Union. To support sustainability, the project works primarily through a group of key local implementing partners, known as the "FIRMA Consortium", who cover all regions of the country. The goals of USAID and Sida for FIRMA are ambitious and transformational, and therefore require wide impact – in product design and quality, in ways of connecting to markets, in expertise of workforce, and in investment attractiveness. FIRMA's strategy is directed toward these systemic objectives. The FIRMA workplan is defined at the private sector value chain level. Implementing partners (called "Value Chain Facilitators" (VCFs)) organize stakeholders first to identify and prioritize competitiveness obstacles through value chain analysis, and then to originate and manage discrete activities to address these obstacles. During the sixth quarter of FIRMA's operation, which spanned December 2010 to February 2011, several noteworthy accomplishments were achieved. In the wood sector, FIRMA facilitated substantial co-funding from the World Bank for official (pre)audits of three forestry management certification bodies. All three bodies successfully passed the pre-audit, and main audits commenced in February. Additionally, FIRMA launched an initiative to train and certify a cadre of local auditors and lead auditors for the FSC Chain of Custody standard. In the wood sector, a producer sales agency was established in the US, which initiated orders following a FIRMA-supported visit of wood processors to the High Point furniture trade show last November. By the end of the report quarter, approximately KM 500,000 had been shipped through this agency – a 20x return so far on the FIRMA investment in US market penetration. Furthermore, a producer sales agency was established in the UK market through FIRMA-supported attendance of wood sector beneficiaries at the INTERIORS '11 Fair in Birmingham, England in January. The agency is operational and has already achieved approximately KM 124,000 in sales from two BiH furniture companies. FIRMA also completed performance improvement plans (PIPs) for six wood sector companies. These plans aim to address competitiveness obstacles and improve the companies' performance. The FIRMA project is implemented by Cardno Emerging Markets USA, Ltd. (Arlington, VA), with consortium subcontractors SIPU International (Stockholm, Sweden), JE Austin Associates (Arlington, VA), Making Cents International (Washington, DC), Orgut Consulting AB (Stockholm, Sweden), Pi Consulting (Sarajevo, BiH), and 12 regional and local economic development agencies in BiH.