ARD, Inc.

THE WORLD CONTINUES TO CHANGE at a rapid pace.  Yet the basic problems people confront in their daily lives—their efforts to feed, clothe, house, educate, and govern themselves—remain the same.  These challenges transcend cultural, historic, and geographic boundaries.  ARD’s mission is to become involved in day-to-day efforts, seeking practical, long-term solutions to problems that touch individuals, families, communities, and nations.

Headquarters in Vermont, USA, and OFFICES AROUND THE WORLD

ARD, Inc. was founded in 1977 as a Vermont corporation. This state’s reputation for leadership in environment and local participatory government embody ARD’s ideals.  In 1992, we established an office in Washington, DC, and we continue to add offices around the world.

A full range of development services

We offer clients a broad range of planning, design, implementation, and applied research services in five general categories:

• Governance and Institutional Development
• Environment and Natural Resources
• Agriculture and Rural Enterprise Development
• Information Technology for Development
• Infrastructure

We conduct comprehensive development programs from start to finish.  We emphasize the integration of business, education, government, and community groups and individuals in problem definition, needs assessment, and strategy development for constructive change.

Supporting local solutions to local problems

The principle of local solutions to problems has always guided ARD.  We view outside consultants, ideas, and resources as catalysts to help localized solutions come to life.  Our experience has shown that problem analysis at the grass-roots level—with active community participation and coordination at regional and national levels—results in  sustainable solutions.

Finding a common ground for results

Our goal is to form meaningful, long-term partnerships with our clients and host-country colleagues.  We work with all parties to seek common interests and approaches, given the growing pressures and shifting priorities of the modern world.

ARD staff

With strong academic preparation and extensive field experience, our staff and associates are at the forefront of new technologies and approaches in social, economic, and organizational change. Our experts publish books and articles. We have more than 100 professionals on staff, all  of whom hold advanced degrees.

BearingPoint, Inc.

BearingPoint Inc., (NYSE: BE) is a global management and technology consultancy with 17,000 employees. Our Emerging Markets practice provides management, economic and technology consulting services to developed and developing economies worldwide. Since 1988, BearingPoint has partnered with USAID and other donor agencies to build the institutions, legal frameworks, policies and information technology capacity required for effective economic governance and private sector growth in developing and transition countries.

Fifteen Years of Successful Solutions

As a GBTI I prime contractor, BearingPoint completed 30 engagements valued at more than $140 million in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Eurasia, across the full range of GBTI technical areas. BearingPoint has a recognized track record in trade and investment policy and promotion, commercial law and business environment improvement, trade capacity building, competitiveness, financial sector strengthening, public sector and regulatory reform, and other economic reform areas. BearingPoint has completed successful projects for governments across the spectrum of maturity—from sophisticated infrastructure to developing economies to post-conflict environments—including in a wide range of Fragile and MCC Threshold States, such as Afghanistan, Kosovo, Kenya, DR Congo, Bosnia, Sudan, and Iraq.

A Legacy of Client Commitment

With a combination of multidisciplinary teams, experience in tailoring international leading practices, understanding of technology, and sensitivity to cultural values, BearingPoint has gone beyond just developing policies at the conceptual level, to see reforms to completion and achieve measurable results. Some of BearingPoints recent and ongoing projects are helping:

• Jordan to promote private sector development though trade and investment policy reform, regulatory reform, financial market strengthening, and direct assistance to the private sector to build competitiveness
• Armenia to enhance its commercial laws and economic regulations and to implement WTO commitments and obligations
• Eighteen countries in East and Central Africa to achieve greater regional and global trade integration through customs modernization, trade policy, trade and transport facilitation, and firm-level support
• Egypt to promote competitiveness through financial sector modernization, commercial law reform, regulatory streamlining, and increased trade capacity
• Bulgaria to strengthen commercial law formulation and regulatory reforms and implementation
• Georgia to create an enabling environment for enterprise growth through private sector-led reforms across a broad range of economic policy areas and sectors
• Kosovo to strengthen economic governance through capacity building within the executive, legislative and judicial branches and entities
• Turkish Cypriot firms to improve competitiveness and economic integration with neighboring economies through firm- and industry-level assistance and financial sector strengthening

CARANA Corporation

Established in 1984, CARANA Corporation has evolved into a leading provider of global development solutions to government, private business, and international donor agencies. CARANA has worked throughout Latin America, the former Soviet Union, Eastern and Central Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. With a worldwide professional staff, CARANA maintains offices in Arlington, Virginia and Moscow, Russia. Our clients include major donors, multilateral financial institutions, foreign governments, individual government-owned companies, and private businesses.

CARANA’s development strategy is based on three pillars:

• Building efficient delivery of government services
• Building business led growth and competitiveness
• Equipping individuals to participate in the global economy

CARANA designs and implements results-oriented strategies for competing in the global economy. We offer wide ranging consulting services and innovative approaches to development in the areas of:

• Private Sector Growth: business advisory services, accounting and financial management, training and education, corporate governance, enterprise restructuring, and microfinance
• Public Sector Reform: trade and competitiveness, capital markets development, privatization, pension reform, public education campaigns, information and communication technology, and institution building, and anti-corruption
• Human Capacity Development: education and training

CARANA programs cover cross-cutting topics, addressing issues such as gender, information and communication technology, business and government ethics, and anti-corruption. A few recent USAID program results include:

• In Colombia, significant expansion in firm capacity, sales, jobs and investment, including creating more than 14,000 new direct, full-time jobs; increasing sales by small and medium-sized businesses by 40 percent; catalyzing more than US$60 million in new investments using innovative partnerships between the financial sector, anchor firms and SMEs; and transforming value chains in apparel, footwear, and food processing.
• In 15 countries in West Africa, expanding trade at the regional level, including establishing market linkages to Africa, EU, and the United States and generating more than US$12 million in export deals.
• In Palestine, helping farmers improve the quality of olive oil resulting in a higher valued product and improved flavor and dietary characteristics that consumers desire; financing installation of a state-of-the-art olive oil storage system, bottling line and marketing campaign to put premium Palestinian olive oil into the retail markets of Gulf States, Europe, and the U.S. that may open a high-value market for 1,100 Palestinian farmers; and maintaining relationships with Israeli herb export company that will generate at least 120 permanent jobs and sales of US$900,000 per year, mainly to Western Europe.
• In Guyana, improving enabling environment for exports, including agribusiness, aquaculture, tourism and value-added wood products. For the latter, more than US$15 in signed and pending export deals.

The Centennial Group

The Centennial Group is a strategic advisory firm composed of internationally recognized figures from the public and private sectors. The Principals of the Group bring together an extensive and unique blend of experience in high-level policy and strategy formulation at the corporate, national, and international levels. The Group has ample experience with World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank and other regional banks (MDBs) in structural adjustment and policy reform, Financial Sector assessment, and knowledge management.

Financial and Banking Sector 

The Centennial Group offers world class expertise to public sector policy makers in the analysis, assessments and technical assistance in promoting institutional and policy development in the financial sector. It provides expert analysis to private sector decision makers on implications of key regulatory and institutional developments in the financial sector, and on financial policy environment, and financial sector risks and vulnerabilities in key countries. The Group practice emphasizes that the development of financial systems and markets requires an orderly, well sequenced, and well coordinated implementation strategy that would ensure financial stability.

Centennial Staff experts provided technical assistance to help establish the Islamic Finance Services Board (IFSB).  It is now providing support to help develop policies and procedures for IFSB operations. Centennial provided assistance through the World Bank to China, Korea and Indonesia in developing financial sector strategies as a part of the second phase of economic reforms after the Asian financial crisis. Centennial led an Asian Development Bank program to assess the vulnerabilities of, and formulate longer term development strategies, for the financial systems in India, Nepal and Vietnam.

Global Knowledge and Innovation

The Centennial Group has world-class expertise in the knowledge economy and innovation area involving competitiveness and productivity enhancement programs at the overall economy and enterprise level. The Centennial Group can assist Governments and public and private sector organizations in a wide variety of knowledge and innovation areas including the assessment of a country's knowledge economy practices and preparation of national innovation strategies as well as designing detailed programs for reforms including policy, regulatory, and institutional reforms; capacity building; knowledge management systems; innovation infrastructure improvements to upgrade patents regime, MSTQ systems, restructuring of research and development institutions, setting up of venture capital funds and seed capital funds, science and technology parks and business incubators. In addition, it provides assistance to develop comprehensive programs to promote enterprise-level innovation and creativity (especially for small and medium enterprises) where firms upgrade their capacity to carry out and use innovation and R&D, and to bring new ideas from R&D laboratories to the global market place.

Center for the Economic Analysis of Law (CEAL)

The Center for the Economic Analysis of Law (CEAL) is a non-profit institute that undertakes legal and institutional reforms. CEAL provides the GBTI II programs of The Mitchell Group with support in bankruptcy law; contract enforcement, dispute resolution and arbitration; secured transactions reform in movable property collateral and real estate mortgages; commercial code reform in company law, business entry and incentives for small enterprises; and reform of registry systems.

Center for the Economic Analysis of Law CEAL undertakes an economic analysis of legal policy options. It implements the programs with broad participation of interest groups using tested knowledge management techniques. It builds consensus with ‘hands on’ activities. In its programs, CEAL also develops indicators of how different legal options benefit trade, and expand access to credit by microenterprises, SMEs and women, as well as by key local industries such as tourism, textiles, livestock, and agricultural products.

CEAL has undertaken projects with the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the ADB, other international financial institutions, USAID contractors, and local Governments in more than 50 developing countries.  Some examples of CEAL’s program activities include:

• A reform of the Secured Transactions Law and Registry system in Romania in 2000. The reform permitted by 2006 more than one million loans secured by movable property, amounting to an estimated $30 billion. Lender and borrower analysis shows a broader range of lenders and borrowers, including purchases of equipment on credit.  The reform’s Internet-based registry archive easily supports the law’s volume of filings and reached national coverage in less than 6 months.  CEAL set out similar reforms in Ukraine and Peru, and is currently undertaking the Secured Transactions Program in Nicaragua for the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF). CEAL draft secured transactions legislation and access to credit analyses are underway in Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Turkey.  CEAL also co-authored the book ‘Collateral Reform and Access to Finance’ for the World Bank, a unique knowledge management tool for program managers.
• In Washington DC, CEAL supported USAID contractors in the preparation of the Legal Matrix for the Accountability of Property Rights setting out legal standards, indicators and benchmarks for property law.  These were presented and endorsed at the recent Summit of the Americas in Buenos Aires.
• In Bolivia, in 1996, the legal framework for micro and SMEs lending promoted the imprisonment of poor entrepreneurs, mainly women.  CEAL’s public awareness program led the government to pass legislation that hindered this practice.  As of 2005, those imprisoned in La Paz for non-payment of debt has fallen from several thousand to fewer than five inmates.  Other legal reforms set out by CEAL expanded formal lending to micro borrowers by lowering the age of majority and removing mining equipment from homestead protections.

Counterpart International, Inc.

Counterpart builds the local capacity of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), institutions, entrepreneurs and farmers in developing and emerging economies. Its community-based, demand-driven approach to economic development is always implemented in partnership with local organizations and always in ways that the local organizations are able to address their own unique needs in their own self-determined ways.  Counterpart’s Microenterprise and Agribusiness Development strategies support economic self-reliance and improved livelihoods.  Recent examples of Counterpart’s program activities include the following:

• Micro-entrepreneurs in the Philippines who were able to increase their incomes as a result of a program that made more than 4,000 loans worth $612,500 and benefited more than 17,000 families.

• In Vietnam, a women's union received training to manage a fund that loaned more than $350,000 to women entrepreneurs with a 100 percent repayment rate.

• In Senegal, more than $25 million in agribusiness and credit services, including training and loans for seeds, tools and equipment to 50,000 farmers helped to diversify crops and increase production.

• In Russia, the Counterpart Enterprise Fund made more than 5,000 loans worth more than $53.5 million to small and medium-size entrepreneurs, more than half of whom were women.

Counterpart also provides Institutional Support for MSMEs.  For more than a decade, it has supported MSMEs and business service organizations in Asia, Africa and the former Soviet Union by strengthening their capacity to address a diverse range of challenges from management and finance to marketing, governance and advocacy as follows:

• In Central Asia, Counterpart helped more than 100 business associations expand their services to SMEs. Work on this project resulted in a 10-15 percent annual increase in membership; a 20 percent increase in annual income; a 16 percent annual sustainability ratio; and $3 million in savings as a result of advocacy campaigns.

• In Senegal, Counterpart has built the capacity of 20 microfinance institutions and increased their performance and repayment rate to 98 percent.

Development and Training Services, Inc. (dTS)

A woman owned small business (8A, SDB certified), Development and Training Services, Inc. (dTS) provides technical assistance and training in economic growth and trade and democracy and governance.  The distinguishing factor in dTS’ approach is the integration of gender considerations and the concerns of under represented populations into all phases of program design, implementation and evaluation.  dTS has conducted needs and gaps assessments; developed and implemented training for policy makers, advocates and grassroots audiences; provided capacity building to institutions and non-governmental organizations; implemented strategic technical assistance reforms; created and implemented communications and outreach campaigns; and managed knowledge management activities for USAID both in Washington and overseas.   

Since its establishment in 2002, dTS has provided its consulting services in 19 countries, including Afghanistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Philippines, Kazakhstan, Albania, Bosnia, Azerbaijan, Mali, South Africa, Peru and the Dominican Republic. The firm has been awarded about US $ 18 million in contracts from the USAID and the World Bank to provide gender integration services. Recent examples of dTS activities include:

• The Greater Access to Trade Expansion (GATE) project is working with seven USAID missions by offering a menu of sectoral gender analyses that identify opportunities for ensuring greater equality in access to the benefits available from trade, raising productivity, stimulating labor demand, and improving the terms and conditions of employment for poor men and women.  The countries include: Albania, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Peru, and Dominican Republic.

• In Jordan, dTS is promoting women’s participation in the economy as labor entrants and business owners through the Jordan SABEQ project.  Specifically, dTS has designed gender integration activities for the project’s four components to ensure that women are economically empowered.  These activities are aimed at increasing women’s access to finance and improving their access to business skills, information technology, market information and outlets for their products.

• dTS produced a documentary to highlight USAID women’s economic empowerment projects in Afghanistan, Philippines (Mindanao), and Lebanon.  As a follow-on to this, dTS developed draft guidelines for practitioners seeking to promote women’s entrepreneurship and livelihoods in high threat environments.  Also included were illustrative indicators to be used in the evaluation of programming to target women’s entrepreneurship

• The Bosnia ELMO project aims to eliminate obstacles to economic growth of SMEs by the legal environment and labor market practices in Bosnia, and to fill crucial requirements for the transition to a fully functioning market-oriented labor market. dTS conducted a gender assessment to identify gender issues relevant to the project, and proposed an initial strategy integrating gender.  dTS guided the project to focus on women organizations as a constituent base to test the business registrations protocols and advocate for needed reforms.

Flag International LLC (FI)

FI provides proven best practices to rapidly identify and solve market constraints in order to create conditions necessary for sustained growth, productivity and competitiveness at the micro, small-to-medium sized enterprise [MSME], association and value chain levels in Fragile States, Threshold countries and other emerging markets. FI contributes directly to the expansion of economic growth and new employment by improving production, increasing sales and facilitating financing for entrepreneurs. FI has a proven methodology for creating market linkages along value chains for Ag businesses, service and light manufacturing firms in rural and urban settings. Recent examples of the range of FI services and their impact include:

• In Serbia FI created 63 Ag cooperatives with 1600 members and then facilitated over $12 million in investments which produced over $20 million in new market linkages, regional sales and exports. Seasonal, part time and full time employment were raised by 16%.

• FI's BDS office in Afghanistan provided business support and promotion services to a cluster of flour mills and food processors that enabled over a dozen companies access to over $2.5 million.

• In Croatia FI's capacity building program for DEMOS Savings and Loan increased the institution's MSME borrowers from 780 to 1800 and expanded the loan portfolio from $1.0 million to over $3.0 million.

Rigorously pursuing cross cutting development initiatives for MSMEs, FI has demonstrated strengths in Monitoring and Evaluation, Knowledge Management and Empowering Women in Business. Examples of these results include:

• FI is self-financing the creation of an Internet based, SQL software application, called NetPM, which will streamline and strengthen performance management for implementers and Mission staff.

• The ELibrary is a Wide Area Intranet that links FI's communities of practice, lessons learned and development information needed to design, implement and manage our programs successfully.

• In Serbia FI provided new business formation training and now over 300 women artisans are linked together in 15 groups that are selling goods into the private sector market place."

Georgetown University, Center for Intercultural Education and Development (GU/CIED)

Georgetown University’s Center for Intercultural Education and Development (CIED) was established in 1981 to support the University’s commitment to education and service worldwide.  CIED is a major provider of international education separate from the university’s regular student and faculty exchanges.  The Center’s tailored programs focus on short-term training and technical assistance programs for foreign students, executives and government officials. CIED has managed more than 150 international contracts and grants totaling approximately $400M.  Over 10,000 people from 40 countries have received direct training and education and the in-country multiplier effect exceeds this number several times.  Recent examples of CIED activities include:

.

• Anticorruption Initiative: Public Policy Centers [Panama and Paraguay]:  These programs have addressed the issue of corruption from a proactive perspective, permitting each country to develop its own university-based Centers.  Projects have included research, teaching and outreach. 
• International Management Programs:  CIED designs and implements tailor-made global business and management training programs at Georgetown University. Topics have included globalization, competitiveness, and strategy. Coursework is complemented by case studies and site visits to U.S. government, businesses and industries in the Washington, DC area.

.

CIED has been especially active in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia in supporting workforce development, economic reform and capacity building for the private sector.  Some examples of our work include:

.

• Applied Business Solutions:  This distance education project was designed to strengthen the total quality management and problem-solving skills of mid-level managers. Participants learned to apply new skills to solve real problems in international businesses and industry.
• Building Transitional Enterprise - Eastern Caribbean:  Researchers worked with micro-entrepreneurs to study the effects of globalization on business in the Caribbean. Reports provided recommendations for creating technology alliances between partners in the Caribbean and the United States with a special focus on e-commerce.
• Georgetown Business Training:  This CIED program assisted universities in Southeast Asia to develop training programs for entrepreneurs emphasizing principles of free market economics and the rule of law.
• International Trade Programs:  These tailor-made training programs at Georgetown University covered topics of business practices, quality control, labeling, taxation, and legal issues related to conducting international trade with the United States. All programs include opportunities for networking and site visits in the United States.
• Radio/TV Business Program – Vietnam:  CIED designed and produced talk radio and television programs to support Vietnam's transition towards a market-oriented economy. Programs encouraged and strengthened small business development.

.

International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. (IBTCI)

For twenty years, IBTCI has demonstrated its capacity-building expertise in over 70 developing countries by assisting governments, businesses and civil societies in privatization, private sector development, financial management, accounting and audit reforms, economic policy, trade and investment, and small and medium enterprise (SME) development in their struggle to alleviate poverty. Out of these disciplines has emerged expertise in monitoring and evaluation, performance management planning, anti-corruption reform and best practices, integrity, transparency and participatory governance in assisting rebuilding, transforming, post-conflict and emerging countries.  We have held nine USAID Infinite Quantity Contracts.

Illustrative technical assistance and project activities provided by IBTCI are provided hereunder:

• Assisting in privatizing public sector enterprises, valued at $440 million over a four year period under $16.6 million contracts in Nigeria. (USAID and DFID);

• Recommended changes in the investment climate in the largest state in India affecting SMEs resulted in reformed legal and regulatory framework and competitive manufacturing and services sectors (WB).

• Restructuring the second largest commercial bank in Nepal under a management contract, resulting in sustained profits, professional management and feasible privatization (WB).

• Implemented accounting, auditing and financial reporting reforms in nine developing countries in line with international standards (USAID).

• Assisted in increasing exports of ready made garments and other textile industries from Bangladesh to the European Union affected by SAARC regulations. (WB)

• Monitoring and evaluation of the total portfolio of USAID/Iraq covering 12,000 activities and all PRTs.

• Anti-corruption, integrity and good governance reforms in Latvia, Macedonia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nepal. (WB and AsDB).