Friday, July 01, 2005
Guidelines for a Private Sector Development Strategy for the InterAmerican Development Bank
Report Prepared by ERI
For the InterAmerican Development Bank, 2003
This report provides recommendations for the articulation of the IDB's strategy for private sector development in the LAC region. To summarize, the strategy should aim to enhance the impact, coordination, effectiveness, and quality of the IDBs interventions in the private sectors of its clients. The private sector development strategy should reinforce the Bank’s goal of promoting development through private sector activities to maximize the impact on sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. Although the goal of assisting countries in promoting the efficiency of markets while at the same time compensating for market failure is complex operationally, if successful, it could greatly enhance the effectiveness of the Bank as a development institution. In another sense, however, this document should not be a viewed as a "strategy" at all. Rather it aims to provide guidelines for the regional departments, together with the functional departments and the other organizations in the IDB Group, to work together to formulate and implement private sector strategies in Group borrowing member countries. To call this a "private sector development strategy" for the Bank Group is a misnomer. A private sector strategy is only meaningful at the country level. While the issues raised in this document are common to all in the region, the details and priorities vary greatly from country to country. The essence of a private sector strategy or program is that it takes place at the country level, and within countries, at the local level. An underlying theme of this document is that what is required is not a strategy but rather a process that starts out with a statement of issues and aims but then focuses on the individual countries and evolves along with an identification of the problems and issues in the countries themselves. This paper calls for the IDB Group to make a commitment to a new way of approaching private sector issues, making it a core element of their country programs, and changing the way in which the staff approaches private sector development.
For the InterAmerican Development Bank, 2003
This report provides recommendations for the articulation of the IDB's strategy for private sector development in the LAC region. To summarize, the strategy should aim to enhance the impact, coordination, effectiveness, and quality of the IDBs interventions in the private sectors of its clients. The private sector development strategy should reinforce the Bank’s goal of promoting development through private sector activities to maximize the impact on sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. Although the goal of assisting countries in promoting the efficiency of markets while at the same time compensating for market failure is complex operationally, if successful, it could greatly enhance the effectiveness of the Bank as a development institution. In another sense, however, this document should not be a viewed as a "strategy" at all. Rather it aims to provide guidelines for the regional departments, together with the functional departments and the other organizations in the IDB Group, to work together to formulate and implement private sector strategies in Group borrowing member countries. To call this a "private sector development strategy" for the Bank Group is a misnomer. A private sector strategy is only meaningful at the country level. While the issues raised in this document are common to all in the region, the details and priorities vary greatly from country to country. The essence of a private sector strategy or program is that it takes place at the country level, and within countries, at the local level. An underlying theme of this document is that what is required is not a strategy but rather a process that starts out with a statement of issues and aims but then focuses on the individual countries and evolves along with an identification of the problems and issues in the countries themselves. This paper calls for the IDB Group to make a commitment to a new way of approaching private sector issues, making it a core element of their country programs, and changing the way in which the staff approaches private sector development.