Who We Are

The Facility for Investment Climate Advisory Services (FIAS) is a collaboration between 16 development partners—donor countries and philanthropic organizations—and the World Bank Group. FIAS funding supports advisory, lending, and investment projects managed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which oversees the client-facing projects implemented by IFC Advisory Services and FIAS-supported global knowledge projects implemented by IFC and World Bank teams. 

FIAS-supported teams work with client governments on engagements aimed at achieving high-level impact. FIAS projects also involve partnerships with sub-national entities on local reform and assist in implementing reforms. FIAS engagement contributes to the global development agenda, establishes communities of practice, leverages examples and shared experience, improves feedback loops between reform input and implementation, shapes reputation and perception, and creates and increases developing country demand for reforms. International organizations and academia partner with FIAS to share and replicate good practice, establish and enhance global thought leadership and implement joint projects and diagnostics through work with organizations such as the OECD, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). 
Going forward, FIAS is supporting projects aligned with the IFC 3.0 Creating Markets Upstream strategy. The aim of Upstream is to leverage IFC Creating Markets Advisory (including those IFC Advisory Services that FIAS supports) to help create the conditions for increased private sector investment and to generate a pipeline of IFC-investible projects. Upstream builds on experience from investment and advisory initiatives that successfully created new market opportunities, and applies innovative models around staffing, funding, indicators, and operations to enable new levels of delivery. 


IFC teams supported by FIAS work with the private sector, regional organizations, and governments to help link firms to investment opportunities while building capacity and advocating for reform through business associations and public-private dialogue. A key goal of this work is to ensure that the private sector perspective is represented in public reform efforts. Regional projects encompassing multiple countries help FIAS leverage maximum results. Examples of such high-impact efforts include FIAS-supported reform work with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA), as well as collaboration on trans-border reform agendas. 


FIAS supports advisory services that deliver thought leadership and client-facing programs with attributable and measurable outcomes and impacts. Over time, advisory services will also leverage programs more systematically to originate, influence, and add value to World Bank financial instruments, IFC investments, and MIGA guarantees. 


Scaling Up Impact Through Leverage

A powerful new dynamic in the FIAS program for FY17–21 is the addition of World Bank Group financing tools to the strong foundation of advisory, technical assistance, and knowledge leadership. IBRD lending and IFC investment present opportunities to combine advisory and Bank Group financing mechanisms in a coordinated fashion. It also helps to mobilize additional capital for development impact. FIAS monitors and reports IBRD lending and IFC investment that have been informed and enabled by FIAS-funded projects, for example: 

 

  • Restructuring government agencies; investment in ICT and implementation systems; capacity building and skills development in the public sector and through public extension services.
  • Infrastructure investment to increase sector competitiveness.
  • Private sector investments to create jobs and business opportunities for local firms and suppliers.

The FIAS commitment to results measurement, impact evaluation, and knowledge and learning includes the proactive communication of results and impact through publications, newsletters, product launches, speeches, social media, and other communications channels. The foundation of this commitment is a cutting-edge results measurement and knowledge-management program backed by impact evaluation and the FIAS theory of change. Together, these systems, publications, and programs create a feedback loop linking project implementation, results, product design, and global thought leadership.