|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
  |
 |
  |
USAID Mission to Poland
Europe & Eurasia
>> E & E Home >> Poland >> Assistance Areas >> Private Sector >> Activity Reports
Success Stories
Assistance Areas
SEED Reports
Contact Information
Last updated: 47
Fabrykat 2000
Technology Transfer
MTEEP Report
Activity Reports for private sector programs funded by USAID in Poland - the reports principally cover 1998 and 1999.
- Central and East European Law Initiative
- Building Skills for U.S.-Polish Business Expansion
- Sustaining Growth through Reform Consolidation
- Manufacturing Technology Transfer Project (Fabrykat 2000)
- Business Support Project - Firma 2000
- Gemini Small Business Project
- Opportunities Industrialization Center
- Management Training and Executive Education Program (MTEEP)
Activity Name: American Bar Association / Central and East European Law Initiative (Poland)
Start Date: March 01, 1992
Completion Date: July 31, 1999
Activity goals and achievements:
The objective of the American Bar Association’s Central and East European Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI) work in Poland was to provide legal training, technical assistance and institutional development in the commercial law sector. Since 1997 ABA/CEELI in particular provided institution-building assistance to Iustitia (the national judges’ association), and the Commercial Law Center (CLC - the bar-sponsored legal resource center). Iustitia and the CLC are to be self-sustainable at the end of ABA/CEELI assistance. ABA/CEELI has also been providing ad hoc legal advice and assistance through its liaisons or short-term technical assistance experts, especially to the ministries of Finance and Justice. The work further included a review of the state of the Polish judiciary.
1. Successful integration of the Commercial Law Center with the Adwokatura, who now fund the librarian. Translations of Polish law texts are being collected in electronic format and posted on the CLC web site, with many law firms being very cooperative in providing materials. The same web site will in future include postings for the Adwokatura as well as Iustitia;
2. Chicago Kent University continues to maintain ties made under ABA / CEELI in providing a joint legal studies program at KUL in Lublin;
3. Assistance to the Ministry of Justice to determine whether Polish legal provisions discriminate against foreign lawyers. ABA agreed with the Poles that the regulations are within acceptable international conventions, and this will be used by the Polish side in OECD negotiations.
Activity Name: Building Skills for U.S.-Polish Business Expansion
Implementing Organization: American University
Start Date: September 29, 1995
Completion Date: August 31, 1998
Activity goals and achievements:
The activity provided Polish business people with training in doing business with the U.S. and up to 20 selected training participants with an opportunity to take internships in U.S. businesses and institutions. The activity included curriculum development, five training courses, and the development of two case studies. Almost 200 students attended the courses, and 19 internships organized by the implementor took place. It was hoped that the relationship between the Kogod School of Business at American University, and the Polish partner – the Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management in Warsaw – would develop beyond the life of the activity.
1. The implementor strengthened its relationship with the new Polish partner institution, the Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management (AEM) in Warsaw, a private and profitable business training center.
2. An additional, fifth, training session was held at the AEM by the implementor and attended by forty-one students, on the basis of which an additional six internships were completed.
3. The AEM and American University continued to discuss possible future cooperation through visits of senior representatives of their organizations and explored the possibilities of distance learning technology to be funded through private sponsors.
4. Upon completion of the activity (which was extended by 11 months beyond the end date originally defined), the targets for outputs agreed were essentially met. 194 students had attended the courses on expanding trade links with the U.S., and 19 out of 20 internships had been completed. This took place in spite of a need to find a different Polish partner after the first set of trainings took place in the summer of 1996.
Activity Name: Sustaining Growth through Reform Consolidation
Implementing Organization: CASE Foundation
Start Date: September 26, 1997
Completion Date: September 30, 1999
Activity goals and achievements:
This two-year macroeconomic research project aimed at identifying the main factors that determine the efficiency of reforms, and at formulating policy prescriptions thereon. Research was carried out by one of Poland's leading macroeconomic think-tanks, the CASE Foundation. It covered the following topics: the development of Poland’s financial markets, the determinants of savings, enhancing private sector growth, assessing alternative disinflation strategies, the conditions for job creation, decentralization of the state and of public finance, the politics of transition, and the institutional environment for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Publications were published on these topics. An international conference on job creation was held in October 1998.
Activity Name: Manufacturing Technology Transfer Project (Fabrykat 2000)
Implementing Organization: Mendez England & Associates
Start Date: September 10, 1998
Completion Date: September 29, 2000
Activity goals and achievements:
The Fabrykat 2000 activity aimed to bolster manufacturing technology transfer centers (TTCs) through better provision of both commercialization of innovations and manufacturing extension services to Poland's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition to assistance to four selected TTCs (Krakow, Lodz, Warsaw, Wroclaw), the activity worked with the Polish Association of Innovation and Business Incubation Centers (SOOiPP). The activity was established working contacts with the State Committee for Science (KBN), the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP), the Ministry of the Economy, and the Agency for Technology (ATT).
The project's course and accomplishments are described in the final report. Furthermore, a review was completed of U.S. and European best practices technology transfer and manufacturing extension programs, and published in a report. This is also available at the Fabrykat 2000 website.
Activity Name: Business Support Project (FIRMA 2000)
Implementing Organization: ACDI/VOCA
Subcontractors: PriceWaterhouseCoopers, AMEG
Start Date: October 01, 1996
Completion Date: March 30, 2000
Activity goals and achievements:
FIRMA 2000 was a USAID funded project to strengthen indigenous business support organizations (BSOs) working with the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector, and strengthen SMEs by providing TA and training. It is also the name of the successor organization that some of the project's former staff have started.
The USAID-funded project involved 30 selected BSOs, and 115 business consultants were trained to improve the quality and range of services provided to SMEs. Firm-level assistance was tied to institutional strengthening of indigenous organizations.
The activity was the major effort of USAID/Poland to strengthen the institutional environment of Poland's SME sector. It aimed to allow SMEs to receive quality services by BSOs weaned off a dependency on grant financing. An additional focus area was work with women-owned SMEs.
Activity Name: Gemini Small Business Project
Start Date: October 01, 1997
Completion Date: October 31, 1999
Activity goals and achievements:
The Gemini activity provided technical assistance and limited training to improve the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) policy environment in Poland. The principal counterparts receiving assistance were the Parliamentary SME Committee, the Industrial Strategy, and Crafts and SME Departments at the Ministry of the Economy, the Polish Foundation for the Promotion and Development of SMEs, and a number of Polish business associations. The activity provided its support through legal opinions on barriers to business and legal drafts that influence SMEs, establishment of coalitions of business associations that lobby on particular platforms, and ad hoc assistance to key counterparts.
The principal areas of work were:
- policy advice and coordination of consultations with business associations of the GoP’s new policy on SMEs – including coordination of major changes to include cost estimations of activities proposed in the policy;
- provision of expert legal advice to the drafting of the Law on Economic Activity, a basic legal regulation of all business activity in Poland, and coordination of consultations of the draft with business associations;
- provision of advice to the Parliamentary SME Committee to amend the Labor Code;
- support to the 1995-98 National SME conferences organized by the Polish Foundation for SME Promotion and Development and financing much of the research on the annual reports' special topics;
- advice to the Ministry of the Economy in gathering sample statistical information on the sector;
- organization of study tours in the U.S. for principal counterparts from such organizations as the Parliamentary SME Committee and the Ministry of the Economy;
- support to a coalition of business associations to comment on the Ministry of Finance’s proposed tax reform in 1998, and coordination of the coalition’s platform (in coordination with the Ministry of Finance) for the April 1999 proposals;
- training and a book regarding establishment and management to membership-based business organizations (MBBOs) in how to organize and ruin such an organization;
- training and a book regarding the Art of Lobbying in Poland;
- research on access to information regarding the legislative process as part of an initiative to ensure proper consultation and review of draft laws and regulations.
A follow-up organization set up by some of the former Gemini staff continues to provide such work.
Activity Name: Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) - Poland
Start Date: September, 1995
Completion Date: September 30, 1998
Activity goals and achievements:
The goal of the activity was to help the OIC-Poland Foundation (OIC) become institutionally and financially sustainable, and be able to continue providing high quality, fee-based management training and consulting services to a wide range of clients, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), business start-ups, middle level managers, non-governmental organization (NGO) managers and secondary school graduates entering the job market.
To achieve the goal, OIC worked to improved its strategic planning process, to upgrade skills of its staff, to improve quality of its training offer, and to adjust the offer to clients' needs. A plan for reaching financial sustainability was also developed, including annual targets of the percentage of the program cost to be covered from self-generated income.
OIC developed a capacity to provide short- and long-term training to 1,100 managers and entrepreneurs per year. Its training offer did also cover other groups of clients, and over the life of the activity OIC provided training and consultation to over 26,000 participants, including secondary school teachers and students, the unemployed , and NGO managers and staff. OIC did also train a group of 12 indigenous trainers in such topics as: Job Market, Small Business Start-up, Computer Applications, Sales Management, and Quality Management. In cooperation with the Lublin Technical University and University of Illinois, OIC organized on a fee recovery basis, a one-year post-graduate program in management education in the following areas: Planning and Marketing, Planning and Management of Human Resources, Quality Management, and Logistics and Management.
OIC is one of the eight USAID-supported indigenous institutions to become a sustainable provider of training and technical assistance to enterprises. At the conclusion of the activity, the following mechanisms were in place as evidence of organizational and financial sustainability: strategic development plan, with income generating target for the next year; ability to provide fee-based, certificate and short courses in business and management to at least 1,100 people per year, including managers, entrepreneurs and business start-ups; ability to monitor and improve quality of training and its appropriateness for the market needs. In addition, OIC established two new activities: high school and college. These new activities were added to create an additional source of stable income in 1999 and beyond.
According to a recent evaluation conducted by the Interface Institute, OIC reached an adequate level of self-sufficiency based on its ability to respond well to changing market conditions, its ability to compete on the market with its good quality training, and its experience in offering a wide range of training products in cooperation with both Polish and U.S. universities.
Activity Name: Management Training and Executive Education Program (MTEEP)
Implementing Organization: University of Maryland and University of Minnesota
Activity goals and achievements:
USAID funded two major grants to improve the standards of management education in Poland. The University of Maryland worked with the Polish-American Management (PAM) Center of the University of Lodz. The University of Minnesota worked with the Warsaw School of Economics and the University of Warmia and Mazuria in Olsztyn. The results of this major effort can be seen on the websites of the Polish partners, and are presented in a final evaluation report. The experience of the Polish management training institutions is being used to further the development of management education programs in Ukraine.
 |
|||
Last Updated on: March 13, 2002 |
