Trade promotion capacity building - IDB

A new virtual tutored course on Towards the next generation of Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) will be offered to IDB beneficiary countries by mid-2017. This is an opportunity to increase skills and knowledge in Investment Promotion tools which will assist participants to develop and implement new strategies to attract investment and promote job creation, presenting innovative programs and institutional best practices.

The virtual course seeks to focus on five aspects viewed as key characteristics of all successful IPAs and then supplemented with an industry-based project that seeks to examine and develop one of the aspects in their own organization. The first aspect that all IPA staff needs to be aware is the function of their organization and their purpose. Only once the purpose is understood can they truly recognize the services that are offered by IPAs. The second aspect is to be able to strategically attract inward investment to a particular country/territory. In the modern context, not all the services are provided physically, and they can be offered digitally or via a smart mobile phone. Third, inward investment requires appropriate facilitation services which can ease the burden of regulation and business set. In many countries, this also implies coordinating with various national and regional authorities so that business start-up and expansion can be carried out seamlessly. The fourth aspect deals with post-investment services linked to developing and growing the firm. The fifth aspect deals with all the investment services that are now commonplace in the world of FDI such as private-public partnerships (PPPs).