USAID Growth with Governance FY I7 Quarter 3 Report

The project focuses primarily on economic growth and governance initiatives and interventions to improve availability and access to high-quality policy information while incorporating a gender and social inclusion dimension. The project's objective is to strengthen the advocacy capabilities of Member-Based Organizations (MBOs) and to support evidence-based public-private policy dialogue for a stronger Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME) sector. These efforts will improve the overall business enabling environment, investment climate, and food security in Zimbabwe. The project activities connect private sector and government stakeholders to engage in policy formulation and dialogue, as well as support the use of evidence-based research and analysis by private sector MBOs and government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in policy development and discussion. During the third quarter of 2017, the project team initiated engagement with national level policy initiatives, including the Ease of Doing Business reforms, where there is clear demand from the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) for engagement. The project team also analyzed various issues to inform the strategic direction for project implementation and conducted several mapping activities to guide decision-making for some activity interventions. Strategic Objective 1: Research agenda and policy dialogue strengthened, focused on influencing the non-governmental entities in policy formulation. Activity 1 involved consultative and introductory meetings with various stakeholder groups and individuals across different categories, including private sector MBOs, MSME associations, research institutions, women's business associations, informal sector associations, value chain associations, labor, and Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs). The meetings served to introduce the project and gathered a broad sense of the economic growth and governance priorities from the stakeholders. The project team also developed a reference group list of qualified and experienced professionals to broaden the base of economic policy opinion. The list includes individuals that are not involved in similar engagements to avoid duplicating the same economic policy opinion at different platforms. A client selection process and a client selection tool were also developed and finalized to aid in the partner selection process during the formal stakeholder engagement process. The project's activities during the third quarter of 2017 included conducting several internal staff trainings on the small grants program, project branding and marking, monitoring and evaluation, gender, and the project goal and objectives. The project team also continued to identify and leverage on various opportunities for engagement and reached out to most of the identified and potential stakeholder groups. The project's overall goal is to improve the overall business enabling environment, investment climate, and food security in Zimbabwe. The project's activities will connect private sector and government stakeholders to engage in policy formulation and dialogue, as well as support the use of evidence-based research and analysis by private sector MBOs and government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in policy development and discussion.