WAIPA Workshops during the WAIPA World Investment Conference 2008, April 18, Accra, Ghana

Promoting a better product: Improving your country’s investment climate – Lessons of experience
FIAS, World Bank

Improving the investment climate is key to attract investment. The efforts of IPAs to improve their country's investment climate can bring results in investment promotion. Using public rankings such as Doing Business, and the FDI Indicator to inform foreign investors recent changes in the country's investment climate can be an effective communications tool for IPAs. At the same time such indicators can also be a powerful tool to support advocacy efforts. FIAS workshop showed how these indicators are constructed, how they can become IPA's tools for change, and how IPAs can use them for image building. The workshop also included best practices of IPAs that have succeeded in improving their country's investment climate and have capitalized on it.
 

Economic development in a Rubrik’s cube world: Megatrends, business innovations and turning global trends into local prosperity
IBM Global Business Services

The IBM Global Center for Economic Development Research recently launched a paper entitled 'Economic Development in a Rubik's Cube World: How to turn global trends into local prosperity'. In it, the authors describe how economic development now takes places in a 'Rubik's Cube' world, where inter-relationships are deep and the challenge for businesses, governments and IPAs is to understand how all the pieces fit together.

The first dimension of this Rubik's Cube world are the six 'megatrends' that are currently changing the world at a more rapid pace than ever before: deepening globalization, large-scale population changes, accelerating technological progress, the Omni Consumer, the corporate social responsibility imperative and growing political uncertainty. These megatrends are shaping the world of 2020, by forcing companies to innovate and refine their fundamental business models, the second dimension of the Rubik’s Cube world.

Businesses are doing this by rearranging their core activities, shedding and partnering for activities where appropriate and expanding into new activities and reorganizing core activities as required. As the business world of the future is being shaped, so too are the winners among investment promotion agencies (IPAs) and economic development organizations (EDOs), the third dimension of the Rubik’s Cube. As they face into the world of 2020, the challenge for IPAs and EDOs is the challenge of the Rubik's Cube: to understand the relationship between the different sides and to get all the pieces to work together. Economic development in a Rubik’s Cube world requires IPAs and EDOs to understand and respond effectively to their clients, their environment and their competition in order to turn these global trends into local prosperity. The winning IPAs and EDOs in the world of 2020 won’t be the most knowledgeable, rather they’ll be the best at execution.
 

IPA Best practice performance workshop
GDP Global Development

Performing at world class levels – How to achieve investment attraction goals.

The Best Practice Performance Workshop focuses on one key thing - global best practice. The workshop uses experiences drawn from the GDP Global’s IPA Performance Benchmarking programme now on its 7th year.

GDP presents what makes for best practice in the promotion and attraction practices of well over 200 agencies around the world, and how to achieve it in your own organisation. This workshop is a unique and ideal opportunity for agency staff and others to review their own methods and activities, and to raise their game in securing inward investment. What's covered in the programme - a 10 point summary

1. Results from the 2005/6 and 2007/8 IPA Performance Benchmarking programmes
2. Top level presentation of IPA performance and results, from developed and emerging economies.
3. Examples of world best practice in investment promotion and investor servicing by inward investment agencies
4. A focus on marketing and e-marketing issues in investment promotion
5. How and when should agencies provide information to investors?  What are the issues for information presentation and agency teamwork?
6. Servicing investor enquiries – What do investors expect from promotion agencies
7. Best practice enquiry/project handling: Process, content, service, promotion
8. IPA Power Performance – Top tips from some of the best performing agencies
9. Specific focus on example areas of interest: agribusiness, manufacturing, tourism, business services, ICT etc.
10. Specific tools and techniques to develop or enhance in your IPA, including: the use of balanced scorecards, CRM systems, overseas embassies, website elements, smart teamwork, sales tips etc.
     
    

Marchés émergents: Vers une incontournable d’investissement
Ernst & Young

Dans les 5 dernières années, les investissements originaires des marchés émergents ont connu une croissance particulièrement soutenue. Ernst & Young International Location Advisory Services fait le point sur les tendances 2007 de ce mouvement, ses acteurs, leur stratégie, les principaux secteurs d'investissement, etc...