Investment Facility for Utilising UK Specialist Expertise (IFUSE)

19 September 2012

The Investment Facility for Utilising UK Specialist Expertise (IFUSE) is a new initiative, launched in March 2012 and funded by DFID. It aims to share specialist expertise from across UK Government Departments to support investment climate reform in DFID partner countries. The UK demonstrates international best practice on a range of investment climate areas, such as regulatory reform, competition policy and customs procedures. The premise of iFUSE is that this UK expertise can help partner governments to improve their investment climate, facilitating economic growth and helping to generate the resources needed to tackle poverty.

How will IFUSE work?

IFUSE is managed by DFID’s appointed Managing Agent – PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) – who will match requests for support with the best available expertise. Developing country governments with which the UK has a relationship through its aid programme, and DFID country offices, will be able to apply directly to PwC to request support from UK government experts on a wide range of investment climate issues. Examples include, taxation, regulatory reform, competition policy and market development. IFUSE will also be able to provide experts in a wide range of other areas linked to investment climate policy and practice.

IFUSE will then identify the best sources of expertise within participating UK Government Departments and arrange for a UK specialist to work directly with the partner government or DFID country office. Through IFUSE, UK specialists will:

• Provide technical expertise and share knowledge with partner government institutions on specific investment climate reform issues; for example, officials from the Better Regulation Delivery Office have worked with officials from Kyrgyzstan on improvements in business regulation;
• Provide advice and support to DFID country offices on investment climate programme design and implementation, programme reviews and evaluations; (for example, Infrastructure UK have already advised the Vietnamese government on options for using private finance to support infrastructure development); and
• Provide peer to peer support to partner government and UK government professionals through informal knowledge sharing (for example IFUSE recently facilitated a knowledge sharing session between representatives from the Turks and Caicos Island and UK Trade and Investments)

The majority of IFUSE assignments will be short term (one to two weeks in-country) and will provide a rapid response to requests for technical assistance, within agreed timeframes with available experts. In its second phase, from 2013, and pending supply of expertise, IFUSE may fund longer-term assignments of one to three months.

What will IFUSE achieve?

Sharing UK expertise will assist developing countries who are making the reforms necessary to encourage businesses to invest, grow and innovate; such as reducing the cost of doing business and promoting fair and competitive markets.

This will help to deliver:

• More jobs for local people;
• Better prospects for economic growth; and
• A greater range of products and services for consumers,at more competitive prices.

Ultimately, the wealth generated from increased private sector investment in a country can be reinvested into basic services – such as education, healthcare, water supplies and sanitation – which help to improve the lives of the poorest people in those countries.

Growth in developing countries can also generate opportunities for international businesses, including UK businesses, for investments and trade.

Type of expertise

A range of UK Government Departments have already signed up to participating in the iFUSE programme, they include Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC);Ministry of Justice (MoJ); Office of Fair Trading (OFT); Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO); Land Registry; Intellectual Property Office (IPO); Government Actuary’s Department (GAD); and Infrastructure UK (IUK). We are currently in discussions with a number of other UK Government Departments regarding their participation in the programme.

Partner countries

DFID partner countries include countries where DFID has bilateral programmes (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Nigeria, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Pakistan, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe); regional programmes (Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Asia and the Caribbean) and aid dependent overseas territories.

Summary of achievements

The IFUSE programme became operational at the end of March 2012. To date, we have received over thirty requests for assistance from nineteen countries. Thirteen requests have been completed and fifteen are in progress. Recently completed assignments include:

• Burma: an expert from UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) spent three days facilitating round-table discussions on foreign investment with Burmese MPs and political parties’ Central Executive Committees. The turnaround time on this request was extremely challenging but IFUSE delivered against it, mobilising an expert and getting them on the ground within fourteen days of the receipt of the request.
• Kyrgyzstan: two experts from the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) spent five days, to assist their counterparts in embedding risk management approaches, building on an initial visit supported by IFUSE in May 2012. 
• Tanzania: two Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) experts returned to Tanzania to help the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) continue to implement their reform of the website. 
• Tajikistan: two delegates from Tajikistan’s Land Registry Authority attended the Her Majesty’s Land Registry and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE) conference on how land registry offices can help find solutions to the ongoing economic crisis affecting the global property markets.
• Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tajikistan: delegates from each of the five named countries attended the BRDO and World Bank conference, in London, on reforming the inspection climate for sustainable growth.

IFUSE Quarterly reports

Report for quarter one

Report for quarter two 

IFUSE will be managed by DFID’s appointed Managing Agent, PwC. For further information on IFUSE, please contact:
Email: ifuse@uk.pwc.com
Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7213 3005