Ukraine SEPPAC (Socio-Economic Performance and Potential Analysis Capacity) Project

Funding: Canadian International Development Agency
Budget: C$3 million
Duration: October 2005 - September 2008
Partner: International Centre for Policy Studies
Project Director: Paul Darby
Project Manager: Dan Lemaire

Visit the SEPPAC website at http://www.seppac.ca/.

SEPPAC is a three year project funded by The Canadian International Development Agency and managed by the Conference Board of Canada, in cooperation with its Ukrainian partner, the International Centre for Policy Studies (ICPS).

The project has five primary Government of Ukraine partners:

• The Ministry of Economy and European Integration

• The Ministry of Finance

• The National Bank of Ukraine

• The National Defence and Security Council, and

• The State Statistics Committee

The SEPPAC project is designed to enhance the capacity of Ukrainian policy makers and analysts by providing them with the tools to estimate the country’s economic potential and measure its socio-economic performance.

Training in both benchmarking and potential output estimation is expected to enhance the public and private sector capacity to design, promote and implement successful policy reforms so as to improve the economic and social goals of Ukraine. It is expected that upon completion of this project, the Government of Ukraine ministries and agencies and ICPS will have developed stronger institutional capacity to measure the countries economic potential and in benchmarking Ukraine’s socio-economic performance.

The output of the SEPPAC project will be a total of four reports: two annual Ukrainian “Performance & Potential” reports in each of the last two years of the project prepared separately by the Government of Ukraine and ICPS. The outcome of the project will be to enhance the capacity of policy makers and analysts from key social & economic policy Ministries and institutions & the ICPS, to design, promote and implement successful policy reforms to improve the economic and social goals of Ukraine.

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APEC Economic Integration Program - S.E. Asia Region

Funding: Canadian International Development Agency
Budget: C$8.5 million
Duration: January 2004 - March 2009
Partner: Estey Centre for Law and Economics in International Trade
Project Director: Charles Barrett; Regional Director (Thailand): John Berry
Resource Director: James Leach (Estey Centre)
Project Officer: Sarah Coombs

Visit the APEC-EIP website at http://www.apec-eip.ca/.

The Canadian International Development Agency selected The Conference Board of Canada, in partnership with the Estey Centre for Law and Economics in International Trade to implement a five year program of trade policy capacity building in six Southeast Asian economies including Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos PDR, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The project purpose recognizes the causal link between domestic institutional and policy capacity building and the ability of developing countries to effectively participate in the global economy by responding to opportunities created by trade liberalization. The goal of the APEC Economic Integration Program (EIP) as it is known, is to assist these economies to integrate into the world economy through complying with WTO obligations and/or WTO accession requirements and increasing their ability to take advantage of WTO rights.

The project will focus on trade in agriculture, trade in services (particularly finances), trade facilitation (particularly customs administration) and negotiation skills.  APEC EIP will engage in three sets of activities as follows:

• Regional short term training,

• targeted technical assistance and;

• Regional thematic networks in selected areas/sectors to share best practices among the countries and to develop regional capacity for preparation of the Doha Work Program of Negotiation.

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The Public Policy Options Project (China) Phase II

Funding: Canadian International Development Agency
Budget: C$10.8 million
Duration: January 1996 - March 2007
Partner: Institute for Public Administration of Canada
Project Manager: Dan Lemaire

The Public Policy Options Project Phase II (PPOP II) was built on the momentum generated under PPOP I a five-year project which ended in September 2001.

PPOP is designed to be responsive to the needs of the Chinese while supporting Canada’s development assistance policy.  Its goal is to promote China’s continuing socio-economic reform in areas critical to the development of a socialist-market economy. Its purpose is to enhance the quality of policy advice provided by Canada and policy development skills of Chinese policy-makers.

This will be accomplished by assisting China in developing policy options for socio-economic reform and by providing support to key Chinese institutions enabling them to strengthen their capabilities to undertake policy analysis and development. 

PPOP matches requests from key Chinese authorities for assistance in analyzing policy alternatives to the best expertise available in Canada.  PPOP is comprised of a number of small projects; each has a maximum budget of $200,000 and an expected turnaround of 12 months. The project is managed in China by CIDA and the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) who is responsible for determining the needs of the Chinese public sector; in Canada it is co-managed by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) and The Conference Board of Canada (CBoC).

Reach:

• State and local government

• Influential policy making Chinese ministries and agencies

• Men and Women senior government policy makers

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The two one-day workshops, with a maximum 40 participants, will provide medium and large organizations, trade promotion bodies, and federal and provincial government representatives, and the media from the national and local level, with a broader understanding of the impact enlargement will have on Canada-EU relations.  Presentations at the workshop will focus on regulatory cooperation; competition policy; and trade and investment relationship.