PIBEL is part of a consortium that recently learned that it is one of six that have been selected as qualified to compete to receive grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) that will total up to $2.4 billion over several years.

    These grants would be for projects in a broad area labeled Commercial Legal and Institutional Reform (CLIR).  This area includes technical assistance in a wide range of activities, such as trade and investment, commercial dispute resolution, intellectual property and other property rights, government procurement, financial services, and institutional reform. Examples of past projects that have been funded in this area include regulatory reform in Ukraine, judicial training in Central Asia, projects on trade law issues in South Africa, and World Trade Organization accession in Jordan.  The area might even include the development and implementation of corporate codes of conduct that address labor and other human rights issues in developing countries.

    ARD, Inc., is the consortium leader and a respected recipient of U.S. AID and foundation grants.  ARD, the Georgetown University Law Center as represented by PIBEL, and 12 other organizations will work together to identify which organizations are interested in working on various projects that would be funded by U.S. AID.  The consortium will then bid on the projects as appropriate.  The project proposals that are to be funded will formally come from U.S. AID, though often at the request of U.S. embassies abroad.

Revised December 2004(KMM)