Trade and investment development

The project has had some success with the tourism law, one-stop licensing, seven workshops on economic development issues, and the national conference. However, due to an overly ambitious design, it is not fully achieving the outputs envisioned in the Project Paper and has only expended $546,000 of the $2.5 million available. Despite these shortcomings, the project shows promise of further achievement in its two principal components (policy advocacy and export development, particularly agricultural), and should be extended. Action decisions are to: extend the project to 12/96; revise the workplan to include impact measurements; and restructure the Board of Directors of Foundation ANDE, the implementing agency, and hire a new more experienced Executive Director. The following lessons were learned. (1) The concept of private sector cooperative action to improve the trade and investment climate is valid, but cooperative action should focus, at least initially, on areas where agreement is more likely to develop. (2) Realism is essential in project design. In this project, seven organizations, some with strongly conflicting interests, had to work together. The 1994 elections and change in government also complicated the environment. (3) Administrative feasibility needs to be assured in project design. In this project, ANDE"s board had not been constituted, and the expectation that administrative support might be forthcoming somehow from other sources did not materialize. (4) Early USAID attention is essential when there is evidence of project slippage.