The four-year BEI Project (2006-2010) is financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and the Republic of Tajikistan. In Kazakhstan, the Project is co-funded by the Government of Kazakhstan. The general areas of BEI activity are commercial law reform, government operational improvement, and association strengthening and public-private dialogue facilitation.

Specific BEI activities are guided by local priorities, but the Project has a common goal for all 3 countries – improvement of the countries' rating in the World Bank “Doing Business” indicators in the following areas:

•  Registering, re-registering and closing a business
•  Land registration
•  Access to credit
•  Protecting investors
•  Construction permitting and oversight

BEI commercial law reform activities are focused on developing a modern, free market-supporting commercial law framework. BEI works with government and private sector counterparts to draft, promote and implement codes, laws, regulations and sub-normative acts to establish a legal regime for business that is simple, consistent and transparent. BEI participates in governmental working groups in each country of operation.

 

BEI operational improvement activities focus on working with government bodies to effectively implement commercial law changes and make improvements to their operations. This is accomplished through analysis and changes to their strategies, systems, processes, roles, and resources to improve service delivery to the private sector, yielding a better environment for business.

Results of operational improvements include:
•  reductions in the time and cost required by business to complete a process
•  increased transparency of the state bodies' operations and public access to information
•  implementation of Impact Analysis for normative and legal acts
•  improved compliance with laws, regulations and sub-normative acts
•  consistently high service quality

 

Private sector advocacy and mutual protection of rights is essential to promote a flourishing market economy. BEI implements the Partnership Program with select business associations. To develop both internal strength and external representative capacity BEI trains partners and provides continuous consultation and integration in a regional communications network.

Training courses for associations include:

•  effective organizational management
•  identifying and delivering revenue-generating services
•  association marketing
•  advocacy methodology, and effective collaboration with government and others

In addition to helping associations transform into self-sustaining organizations, BEI facilitates the development of dialogue opportunities and forums between the government and private sector to improve government responsiveness and private-sector representation