On July 31, DAI’s Bryanna Millis and Ulrich Ernst spoke to U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) staff about a new tool that will help value chain projects identify, prioritize, and promote needed business environment reforms. Ms. Millis and Dr. Ernst discussed the new tool in their paper, "From Red Tape to Red Carpets: Enhancing the Competitiveness Impacts of Business Environment Reforms," presented at a Breakfast Seminar Series sponsored by USAID's Microenterprise Development office.

The Competitiveness Impacts of Business Environment Reforms (CIBER) tool was developed by Ms. Millis and Dr. Ernst with support from the USAID Microenterprise Development office. CIBER is a pragmatic, participatory, and action-oriented tool for assessing key impacts of the business environment on the competitiveness of value chains, appraising the benefits and costs (including political and administrative feasibility) of reforms, and promoting efforts to realize high-priority changes.

CIBER will help projects strategically rank the constraints to competitiveness, assess the political and administrative feasibility of proposed reforms, and develop and implement advocacy plans to support reform initiatives. DAI piloted CIBER in the cashew value chain in Brazil and has since used it to assess constraints to the non-timber forest products sector in Serbia.

To listen to the presentation and download the presentation, visit the MicroLinks website.