Quarterly Report FY17 Q1 August 31 – December 31, 2016

Introduction

The Supporting the Policy Environment for Economic Development (SPEED+) activity is a four-year, $37.2 million project funded by the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Mission in Mozambique (USAID/Mozambique). SPEED+ is designed to create a business enabling environment to attract investment, expand markets, and reduce costs, thus contributing to broad-based and inclusive economic growth and conservation of natural resources in Mozambique. SPEED+ will provide technical assistance and capacity-building to improve public-private policy dialogue; improve the policy environment for agriculture, trade, power, water, and biodiversity governance; and to strengthen the implementation of government policies and regulations.  SPEED+ seeks to support economic and structural policy reforms across four components: (1) agriculture, (2) trade, business enabling environment, (3) power, water, and (4) biodiversity conservation. SPEED+ will promote the areas of improved fiscal transparency, tax policy and economic and environmental governance across all aspects of its programming. The project will also support multiple global initiatives including the Feed the Future (FtF) Presidential Initiative, Trade Africa, the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (NA), the USAID Biodiversity Policy, the U.S. National Strategy to Combat Wildlife Trafficking, and Power Africa.