PRIVATE SECTOR ENGAGEMENT
Empowering communities and promoting self-reliance through enterprise-driven development
FMI was originally founded to assist private sector firms in frontier markets, and this enterprise-driven ethos remains at the core of our development work. For nearly three decades, FMI has viewed private enterprise as the driving force behind sustainable growth, and the single most reliable means to improve livelihoods, strengthen communities, and accelerate self-reliance. FMI’s private sector engagement work seeks to harness the unique capabilities of the private sector and channel these resources to address problems that cannot be solved solely by donor or government intervention. This includes collaborating with a range of banks and financial institutions, investors, SMEs, corporations, NGOs, and CSOs to achieve scalable results through market-oriented solutions. FMI has assisted thousands of local businesses to improve their operations and create permanent jobs, has implemented comprehensive training programs to improve firm and workforce competitiveness, and has created strategic private sector linkages that promote knowledge and capital transfer to developing markets.
FEATURED WORK
Promoting SME Competitiveness in Jordan
FMI is currently implementing the USAID/Jordan Business Growth Activity, which will enable Jordan’s small and medium enterprises to improve their productivity and competitiveness, create new jobs and innovations within a range of sectors, and advance Jordan towards a more prosperous, resilient, and inclusive future. Through a series of evidence-based interventions, FMI is supporting these enterprises via direct firm-level assistance and broad-based capacity building programs. FMI is empowering SMEs to access competitively priced debt, equity, and new hybrid financial products and operate within a more responsive business environment informed by public-private dialogue and advocacy.
Expanding Workforce Development in Indonesia
FMI worked to equip Indonesia’s most vulnerable youth with the training and opportunities needed to participate and benefit from the country’s growing economy. FMI filled critical gaps in existing workforce development programs by incorporating work-relevant life and financial skills training in vocational and technical institutions across Indonesia. FMI improved the employability of over 20,000 young women and men and established a network of workforce development and financial life skills trainers in over 25 districts of Indonesia, working with partners from government, the private sector, and academia.
Engaging Diaspora Businesses in Bosnia-Herzegovina
FMI mobilized the BiH diaspora and channeled diaspora resources to create new private sector jobs in BiH. FMI provided managerial and business development support as technical assistance and investment facilitation to diaspora-owned SME beneficiaries. This includes operating a “one-stop-shop” that provides local firms with operational, managerial, market access, corporate governance, legal, accounting, and business-to-business matchmaking assistance so that they are better positioned to access credit and equity investments. Over the life of the Activity, FMI supported 164 firms and facilitated more than $24 million in new investment.
