Innovations in Foreign Direct Investment Attraction

2. 

Determining the resources available for the program: The Canada example shows 

how the national IPA co-funds subnational investment promotion initiatives, which 

is an innovative model that could be considered by LAC IPAs. As well as a dedicated 

budget, the national IPA would need a program manager in place and a panel to review 

applications for funding and decide which initiatives are to receive funding; 

3. 

Developing the project templates for the program:

 Templates should be developed 

to implement the program, most important of which are the “Application Form” to bid 

for funding and the “Evaluation Form” to report on the results;

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 and

4. 

Monitoring and evaluation of results:

 The national IPA should require a post-proj-

ect report from each subnational IPA that receives funding to monitor and evaluate the 

results, which will also influence the allocation of future funding.

A program such as Invest in Canada is relatively straightforward to develop once a 

budget has been made available to support subnational investment promotion and the 

templates have been developed for the eligibility criteria and application process. 

The budget needed will depend on many factors including the objectives of the pro-

gram and the number of subnational IPAs. In small countries, a relatively small bud-

get could make a major difference while in large countries a significant budget will 

be needed to make an impact. We would recommend a minimum annual budget of 

US$100,000 and a maximum annual budget of US$1 million for the largest countries 

in LAC. If the Invest in Canada 50:50 funding model is adopted, the impact on new 

funding allocated to investment promotion at the subnational level would be double 

the program budget.