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Capacity building ensures areas of weakness are strengthened in line with national laws and financing agency rules to ensure sustainability.

Upper Quartile provides experienced consultants to work with beneficiaries within their own organisations for short, medium or long term assignments. Our consultants can assist beneficiary organisations in full accordance with UK or international agency procedures and specifications (including tendering procedures).  

Upper Quartile can provide training and mentoring initiatives. We also work with donor agencies to advise beneficiary governments on how to ensure that national procedures actually meet the requirements of the donor funding agencies, ensuring that those procedures are consistently and practically applied in the operational environment.  The support we provide traditionally is provided through a combination of:

One-to-one training - trainees learn through direct one to one tuition / mentoring
Local training courses - our consultants provide structured training courses on site
Attachment - beneficiary personnel are seconded either to Upper Quartile or other similar organisations to gain practical experience
Formal Study – an assessment, comprehensive, practical operational manual designed specifically for the laws and operational parameters of the applicant country

Upper Quartile have built coherence and capacity in numerous companies and support agencies, focusing on leadership performance and the facilitation of knowledge sharing and transfer.   This includes advising industry associations on development of strategy and activities to engage their business sectors.

Project Examples

WTO Accession – UNDP Albania

As Albania made a commitment to join the World Trade Organisation the significance, extent and complicated nature of the work required to integrate the skills and relationship-building between the line-ministries, the international community and the support agencies became clear.    The European Commission made available €2 million and the UNDP made available €200,000 to undertake a Trade Liberalisation and Support programme.    Upper Quartile was responsible for designing the 3 year programme and managing its implementation.   The management of some 2,500 man-days of specialist consultancy was also scheduled and outputs coordinated.    The programme had 3 primary components:

1. Trade Regulation – to increase the rate and professionalism of the implementation of the World Trade Organisation and Stability and Association Agreement obligations and Regional Free Trade Agreements.
2. FDI – to develop the institutional capacity in the FDI Promotion Agency and the Port Free Zone and identify Italian, Greek, German and Turkish investors.  
3. Export – to develop the institutional capacity in the Export Promotion Agency and the Business Zones and Free Zone Administration at the Port of Durres and to increase the value and volume of exports and introduce ISO / HACCP Certification into 10 Albanian exporters to allow exports to the markets of the EU. 

The programme was recognised and accepted as a success by both the European Commission and the UNDP with the UNDP particularly satisfied that the support of Upper Quartile had raised their professional technical capacity into a highly technical area to support the humanitarian and social work being undertaken.

Regional Trade Agreement – Papua New Guinea

The Pacific Islands are home to some 7 million people – Papua New Guinea has 5½ million of these and access to some of the most fertile fishing waters in the world, yet face some terrible levels of unemployment and social deprevation with unemployment levels similar to Somalia.   The multi-lateral negotiations of trading economic support in return for access to fishing and mining resources had stalled.   Upper Quartile was brought in to provide assistance to the Government of Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands Forum to articulate the institutional restructuring and a negotiating policy to fit within the already agreed ACP-EU Economic Partnership Agreement.    Upper Quartile prepared a negotiating paper presenting the short, medium and long term action plans to ensure effective management of the negotiation process for Papua New Guinea’s involvement in the EPA.   We also carried out some negotiation skills training for the PNG Government staff meeting with European Commission staff to negotiate economic aid in return for access to the UK, Spanish, Dutch and French deep-water fishing fleet.     

National Export Strategy – Jordan

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan sits at the cross roads of several trade routes and felt that the businesses it had and the infrastructure it built (ports and free zones) were being used by non-Jordanian companies leaving little behind in economic terms.    Upper Quartile were asked to review the Trade Policy, the existing Legislation that exporters had to operate under and review the historic export performance.    We held interviews with several senior Government Ministers (Trade and Industry, Economy, Planning and Telecommunications) and senior Private Sector Businessmen in preparation of a detailed National Export Strategy for Jordan.   The Export Strategy was later used as the basis for a Government managed funding programme involving support from the US Government and the European Commission. Upper Quartile worked with the fledgling Export Agency to build capacity to a level where significant funding focused on export development could be effective.   

 

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