WDI, Bearing Point Join Forces
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The William Davidson Institute has partnered with the leading global consulting firm Bearing Point Inc. for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) program, Support for Economic Growth and Institutional Reform (SEGIR).
As a subcontractor for Bearing Point for the next five years, WDI is part of the consulting giant’s consortium that will bid on work for the Global Business, Trade, and Investment Services II (GBTI II) program, which is associated with SEGIR.
Khalid Al-Naif, director of WDI’s Development Consulting Services, said he is pleased to be affiliated with Bearing Point and ready to leverage the Institute’s in-house experience and expertise in Trade and Investment, Policy Reform and Poverty Alleviation.
“I’m expecting a good deal of work to come out of this,” Al-Naif said. “From here on we’re going to have the opportunity to be involved in much bigger projects all over the world.”
The primary program objectives for GBTI II focus on devising and implementing robust strategies to promote real economic growth, reduce poverty, graduate transitional countries from aid to trade, promote open competitive markets, develop the private sector, and mobilize private financing sources to supplement and eventually replace development assistance.
GBTI II contractors will provide a full range of services to USAID missions and to USAID in Washington, D.C. in substantially all major areas of business, trade, and investment development and reform.
The principal advantage of this competitively awarded indefinite quantity contract is that it provides a more efficient response to the needs of USAID missions overseas by establishing a competitive bidding process between only pre-approved GBTI II contractors.
These contractors compete for individual contract requests on the basis of technical and cost proposals that are evaluated by USAID missions. Over the planned 2007-2012 implementation period of the GBTI II, USAID has projected that up to $3 billion of contracts could be issued.
