SME Policy Advocacy in Russia

Improve the business environment for small and medium-sized enterprises in Russia

The SME Policy Advocacy Project sought to improve the business environment for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Russia.

The initiative aimed to address the folllowing barriers to doing business:

• Administrative barriers, such as unwieldy registration and licensing requirements often pushing businesses into the informal sector;
• Complex and excessively rigid tax codes, encouraging evasion;
• Limited access to resources on business development, as well as a reliable process to review and comment on draft legislation;
• Poor protection of property rights;
• Widespread culture of corruption.

The initiative was implemented by the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) as part of an eight-year project with financial support of USAID.

Publications capturing the project’s best practices have been published by CIPE in Arabic and French. Anti-corruption and coalition-building techniques developed under the project have also been applied by CIPE in Ukraine, Thailand and Lebanon.

Impacts include:

• The project helped to build coalitions of chambers and associations in 18 Russian regions and work with several key national-level groups that are advocating for important changes to create a more transparent business environment.

• The regional coalitions conducted 222 advocacy efforts related to 138 legislative changes on the regional level. The business associations represented reported a 30 percent increase in membership. Over 5,000 firms were protected annually from government interference and rogue bureaucrats by CIPE partner business associations. The International Institute for the Management of Business Associations, self-sustaining by the project’s end, had trained over 1,800 professionals.