Business and Economics Educational Development
WDI has a strong track record increasing the capacity and institutional sustainability of business schools and applied economics programs in emerging markets, which has included assessments of existing programs, development of faculty, curricula, strategic management, research capabilities and financial sustainability.
Private Sector Development
Since our founding, WDI has focused on reform and development of the private sector in transitional economies, including banking, capital markets and carrying out emerging market research and assessments. As part of this effort, WDI advises policy makers on improving the enabling environment for private sector development, in the areas of trade, taxation and financial sector reform. A complementary strength of WDI is SME Development, including sector assessments, strategy development and training/capacity building of entrepreneurs and experienced managers.
Knowledge Management / Information Dissemination
WDI's Working Paper Series is a collection of over 700 papers dealing with business, economic and policy issues in transition or emerging markets by leading experts in these fields. The series consistently ranks in the top 20 in number of papers downloaded from Econpapersk, an on-line archive of Economics working papers and journal articles. Papers from the Institute's series are more frequently accessed than those from other noted sources such as IMF Working Papers and OECD Economics Department Working Papers.
WDI’s Davidson Data Center and Network (DDCN) is a web-based archive and portal for data on transition and emerging market economies. The DDCN provides accessibility to datasets on firms, individuals, households, and to macro data on the transition and emerging market economies, data which was previously difficult to acquire. The project has three major components: 1) an online data archive that preserves and disseminates macro statistics and micro datasets; 2) a portal to existing data provided by other sources (e.g. individual researchers, multilateral organizations, research institutions, commercial vendors, and universities.); and 3) a data exchange-for data that cannot be made available in the public domain, DDCN assumes an active role in the brokering of access between researchers and institutions.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Development Consulting Services believes that its monitoring and evaluation tools can be a powerful learning instrument for the clients to identify results, impact, lessons learned and to improve the quality of their activities. Our team is well positioned to plan and conduct monitoring and evaluation (M&E) studies which enable decision makers to track their organizations' overall performance and to report the outcomes to stakeholders inside and outside their organizations. We employ the results-based management (RBM) framework and the Logical Framework (Logiframe), standard tools used worldwide, to deliver analyses of pertinent information and to minimize unnecessary efforts of clients. We excel at furnishing project Road Maps, a series of recommendations and next steps for the clients, so they continue to add value in their project management and monitoring.
Post-Conflict Economic Growth
Post-Conflict Economic Growth is a broad-based program for the purpose of generating rapid and sustained economic growth and to substantially increase the product competitiveness and growth of private enterprises in high potential sectors in a given country. Technical assistance is offered to determine areas of opportunity, value-chains, groups of firms that can collaborate to resolve common issues. WDI provides targeted sector-based technical assistance to assist individual firms or industries within a country. Policy Reform within the Economic Reform is to substantially improve the business enabling environment through policy and institutional development with the high potential sectors.
Policy Reform
WDI is deeply engaged in strategic policy reform in economic growth, public health and environment in countries in transition. The analyses WDI provides cover the policy content, positions and the power of major players, opportunities and obstacles for policy change that leads to the development of strategies for change. WDI provides a gateway to utilize the vast academic resources of the University of Michigan as well as other universities to develop strategies.