CASE STUDIES - ENGAGING THE PRIVATE SECTOR |
Promoting sustainable private sector growth Promoting sustainable private sector growthThe Ministry of Trade and Industry in the national government of a large African nation had identified a number of short-comings in its growth-promotion agenda and its policy dialogue with the private sector. With the support of an international agency and bilateral donors, the government sought to bring in best practices on policy dialogue and to develop a strategy for boosting interactions. A Dalberg team worked with public officials and private sector representatives to identify barriers standing in the way of an open and effective policy dialogue and to come up with realistic ways to overcome them. A number of challenges had to be overcome along the way, as conflicting perspectives and priorities within the two sectors were bridged. The project produced an ambitious strategy for a public private partnership dialogue forum in which representatives from the two sectors agreed to procedures for the policy dialogue, priority agenda points and support structures. A programme was also launched with donor support to promote the forum’s activities as well as to advance particular growth-promotion issues such as supporting informal sector enterprises and identifying new ways to engage multinational corporations in the national development agenda. These initiatives helped to intensify the government’s policy dialogue with the private sector, especially at the regional level. The programme also helped highlight the huge potential locked up in the informal sector and paved the way for new initiatives supporting thousands of informal entrepreneurs. These steps are widely viewed both nationally and internationally, as indications that a new momentum is building for private sector development in the country. |