CIPE's Track Record
Staying "Ahead of the Curve" for Nearly Two Decades

John Bohn, CIPE's Chairman since 1999, recently made an in-depth presentation to the Executive Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on CIPE's track record since its establishment in 1983. Below are excerpts of that presentation.

Seventeen years ago, when CIPE opened its doors for business, the world was a very different place than it is today. In 1983, no one would have foreseen the instrumental role that CIPE would come to play in strengthening democracy around the globe through private enterprise and market-oriented reform. CIPE has done this by:

• Promoting the development of legal and institutional structures necessary to establish and maintain open, market-oriented economies;
• Increasing business participation in the democratic process;
• Supporting private voluntary business associations and freedom of association;
• Building an understanding of and support for the rights, freedoms, and obligations essential to a democratic private enterprise system;
• Enhancing business knowledge and strengthening the entrepreneurial culture of the private sector;
• Expanding access to business and economic information necessary for informed decisionmaking;
• Developing facilitation mechanisms that promote the growth and development of the private sector, domestically and internationally.

Instrumental to CIPE's success have been its special relationships with partner organizations around the world: broad-based business organizations, think tanks, foundations, and media associations. These partners have enabled CIPE to carry its message of reform into countries that have traditionally been plagued by an absence of the rule of law, legacies of central economies and economic mismanagement, and widespread corruption. In this way, CIPE has been on the "front lines" of democratic and economic reform - strengthening the rule of law and institutional structures that are needed to make emerging markets work.

Over the years, CIPE has been involved in more than 600 projects in 70 countries. The alumni of CIPE's business association training programs now number more than 1,700 leaders in Asia, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Eurasia. CIPE today is engaged in 83 active projects, at a total cost of some $12 million, and we maintain offices outside the United States in Bucharest, Kosovo, Montenegro, Moscow, and Cairo.

CIPE has also pioneered use of the Internet to carry its message of reform around the world. Its award-winning "Forum on Economic Freedom" website gets an average of 2,300 hits per day, and the Economic Reform Feature Service sends news out about reform programs in eight languages.

Through its worldwide partners and the effective use of media, CIPE has been remarkably successful in pursuing strategies designed to: Build a knowledge of how markets function in a democracy; Promote understanding of the role of sound corporate governance; Strengthen the role of women in business and in associations; Reform institutional structures to engage the informal sectors; Promote a solid understanding of privatization.

CIPE has a proud history of "staying ahead of the curve," and we expect that tradition to continue. As we look at the future, we and our partners face some formidable challenges:

• The lack of a reform dialogue in some countries where democracy has not taken root, economic systems are not market-based, and where little information exists on how to make the transition;
• Corruption and a lack of transparency and accountability within financial markets, private companies, and state owned enterprises, particularly where unhealthy alliances between political apparatchiks and business oligarchs undermine true participation in public entities by private citizens;
• The continuing economic and political gender divide in transition societies;
• Information technology's "digital divide," which discriminates against lesser developed nations;
• Educational systems in emerging democracies that do not teach the next generation about the relationship between market institutions and democratic governance;
• Ensuring that local institutions are prepared to continue as much-needed sources of research, information, analyses, and advocacy beyond the initial stage of reform;
• Continuing the momentum for economic and political reform in countries where CIPE no longer provides direct grant assistance.

Those of us who are laying the groundwork for CIPE's future have our work cut out for us. There are times when it seems like our efforts amount to little more than a single drop in a swirling sea of global change. And yet, when we look back on CIPE's prodigious accomplishments over the past 17 years, we realize just how much this changing world has needed CIPE and how CIPE has truly made a difference.