"TIBA will target both the national and regional level," explained Earl Gast, USAID Mission Director. "It will include activities promoting Ukraine's accession to WTO and post-accession implementation, private enterprise compliance with WTO requirements; improving business environment and creating enabling environment for increased domestic and foreign investment; and streamlining and enforcing regulations to reduce corruption related to granting land owner and user rights, access to utilities, and construction permits."

USAID's assistance activities in 2003-2006 have enabled Ukraine to conform to numerous complicated WTO agreements and requirements by reforming its legislative and foreign trade regime, including Ukraine's governing policy, legal, regulatory, and institutional framework. The new project will continue to review and propose amendments to Ukraine's trade-related laws and regulations to make them WTO-compliant as well as improve the processes of institutions that are critical to the implementation of WTO commitments.

The new project will leverage successes of USAID's BIZPRO project, which ended in December 2006 and provided significant assistance in the areas of trade expansion and regulatory reform. The SME sector in Ukraine continues to lag behind nearby countries in its proportion of GDP and employment due in large part to the regulatory obstacles that SMEs face here. The project will further develop methods introduced earlier by BIZPRO, which combined a top-down and bottom-up approach to successfully strengthen public sector regulatory institutions, improve enforcement of the Regulatory Policy Law, institutionalize regulatory impact analysis and evaluation, and further implement quick deregulation strategies at the national, sector and regional levels.

Complicated and confusing systems providing construction permits, delivery of municipal services, and access to land are sources of significant corruption. The US Government through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) will make one of its largest Threshold Program investments in Ukraine through TIBA. The investment is designed to help improve Ukraine's performance on the MCC's corruption indicator, and improve the lives of citizens in the process. TIBA will work to reduce opportunities for corruption by helping make processes more efficient, simple, and transparent; improving the permit system law and related statutes, streamlining procedures for construction permits and access to utilities, and improving the law on inspections.

Booz Allen Hamilton will be the primary implementing partner for the new project. Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading global consulting firm, has more than 18,000 employees serving clients on six continents. Booz Allen Hamilton will partner on the TIBA project with Emerging Markets Group, Economic Integration Forum, Crimson Capital, and Mendez England.