Business Growth Initiative (BGI) Project

USAID's Office of Economic Growth of the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade (EGAT/EG) established the Business Growth Initiative (BGI) project to promote best practices in enterprise development as a critical element for Economic Growth. BGI serves as a key element in building a Community of Practice for Enterprise Development, both within USAID and its development partners and among the broader development community worldwide.

BGI seeks to provide technical leadership in enterprise development for USAID, for its development partners, and for the wider communities of practice in enterprise development. It is meant to provide both direct and indirect assistance through project designs, project evaluations, research, technical briefs, workshops and seminars and through pilot demonstration projects.

One of the primary aims of the BGI project is to assist USAID professionals and staff engaged in enterprise development activities to perform tasks more effectively, while promoting best practices in project implementation.

BGI does this through a variety of activities and products:

• 
  - Providing services to Missions and Bureaus through direct support in concept development, project designs, evaluations, assessments,
    development  of economic growth strategies, and through the Enterprise Development Diagnostic (MEASURE) tool.
  
  - Conducting original research to improve the bank of knowledge about enterprise development through short technical notes and longer research     
    papers to guide intervention decisions to spur enterprise development, and thus economic growth.
  
  - Hosting local and international workshops and trainings to build capacity and share knowledge on key practice areas in enterprise development.
  
  - Compiling best practices and lessons learned in enterprise development, specifically related to the recommendations in the Enterprise Growth
    Initiatives: Strategic Directions and Options Study and Handbook.
  
  

Some recent BGI activities this year have been:

• - BGI finalized its Business Innovation Center concept with USAID/Morocco through a study tour in collaboration with RTI International. 8 Moroccan
    participants traveled to North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park to learn about business innovation centers.
  
  
• - In collaboration with the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and School of Public Policy, BGI sponsored a student-led
    consulting activity to Sri Lanka.
  
  
• - BGI continued its support to USAID/Indonesia through various activities. It is supporting the arrangements and logistics of a number of local and
    regional participants to the Regional Entrepreneurship Summit to be held in Bali, Indonesia in quarter 4.
  
  
• - BGI also helped identify and secure venture capitalists and investors to participate in USAID/Indonesia’s iMULAI business plan competition, which
    was an ICT based competition for local Indonesian entrepreneurs.
  
  
• - SAID/Indonesia also requested that BGI support a zakat assessment, or investigation of Muslim finance in Indonesia. The assessment will be
    conducted in quarter 4.
  
  
• - In collaboration with the A&ME bureau at USAID, BGI provided a team leader to travel to Vietnam to conduct an evaluation of the STAR project.
  
  
• - In collaboration with the U.S. Department of State’s Global Entrepreneurship Program (GEP), BGI is producing an entrepreneurship toolkit, to be
    provided to USAID and U.S. Embassies worldwide, to offer recommendations and best practices on how to design and implement entrepreneurship
    programs.

BGI is implemented by Weidemann Associates, Inc. (Prime Contractor) and by J.E. Austin Associates and Management Systems International (MSI) (Subcontractors).