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USAID Business Growth Initiative (BGI)
Weidemann Associates, Inc.

Dates:

09/2006

to

9/2011

Program Goal/Need

USAID established the Business Growth Initiative project to promote best practices in enterprise development to help drive sustainable economic growth. BGI is a key element in building a community of practice for enterprise development, both within USAID and among development practitioners worldwide.

Program Description

As prime contractor, Weidemann Associates provides a vision of how to achieve the overarching project objectives and oversees direct technical assistance in program designs, project evaluations, research, technical briefs, workshops, seminars and through pilot demonstration projects.

Program Results

The BGI project has become the leading source of experts and materials for USAID Missions, Bureaus and personnel on topics and issues related to enterprise development. BGI continues to be a significant contributor to the USAID/EGAT office through project design, assessment and evaluation, organizing international conferences and workshops, advancing research and technical publications, collaborating and building linkages with other development partners, managing a knowledge management portal of the only coordinated list of USAID economic growth projects, and developing new tools and activities. Specifically, BGI successes include, but are not limited to:

  • Ability for USAID staff, personnel and other development practitioners to gain easy access to thousands of project reports, scholarly journals and research studies, reports and statisticsĀ 
  • Completion of five research activities and 20 technical papers written on topics ranging from the buyer-supplier relationship, information communication technology (ICT) for economic growth and public-private alliances
  • Collaboration with over a dozen different development partners including universities, think tanks and other USAID projects to foster new thought leadership.
  • Direct support to USAID staff, personnel, Missions and Bureaus in the implementation of best practices for enterprise development programs and activities
  • Implementation of new tools, such as the MEASURE enterprise diagnostic tool
  • Creation of an alliance with the University of Maryland for a graduate school case competition Initiation of a business innovation center partnership in Morocco

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