I can only imagine what the look on my father’s face will be when he finds out that I went go-kart racing in Iraq this month. Seven years of turmoil and almost thirty continuous years of wars and sanctions have made Iraq a very dull tourist location, to say the least. Before this trip most of my off time between marathon work events and meetings has been spent reading in my hotel room and eating mezze and lamb. All of that is changing now.
The Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has taken the region’s private sector seriously in its advocacy to change the issues hindering investment and growth. While policymakers have actively engaged the private sector in its advocacy efforts, they have also faced problems. Prior to 2007, advocacy was mostly done one on one, and policymakers had a difficult time discerning which issues were affecting business as a whole and which were affecting only a few businesses.
In 2007, this changed when CIPE sponsored the development of a Kurdistan Business Agenda (KBA). For the first time the private sector organized to prioritize and articulate the major issues in eleven different sectors, including, among others, banking and finance, industry, agriculture, commerce, and education. Through a year of work and consensus building, private sector representatives identified the major issues in each sector, articulated solutions that could help facilitate increased investment and economic growth, and compiled them in a single, comprehensive business agenda.
What happened next was a whirlwind of activity. Over the next three years, with continuous CIPE-supported advocacy, the government took major steps forward. Laws changed, small business access to capital increased, barriers to entry lowered, costs to doing business decreased, and business boomed. The changes on the ground are remarkable. As far as the eye can see in Erbil, the capital of the KRG, construction cranes are constantly in motion. New malls, hotels, universities, entertainment centers, street lamps, restaurants, and even go-kart racing speedways are popping up over once barren, rural land.
The changes are so profound that the original KBA is now a dinosaur, its recommendations increasingly out of date as the government has responded to the needs of its private sector constituents. Because of this, CIPE is sponsoring a comprehensive update of the KBA in 2010. I am looking forward to Erbil three years from now, when the new KBA’s impact will be coming into full force. Who knows what amazing tourist attractions visitors such as myself may be able to see. My father, on the other hand, may not be so excited.
Published Date: October 25, 2010