CIPE global impact - Center for International Private Enterprise

Nation's Business, Nov, 1989

CIPE's Global Impact

The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), a 5-year-old affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, supports organizations in developing nations seeking to promote democracy and private enterprise as a basis for prosperity and individual freedom.

CIPE is funded by Congress under the National Endowment for Democracy.

Recent grants to pro-enterprise organizations in Hungary and Poland were CIPE's first in Eastern Europe, but they will not be its last, says William T. Archey, executive director of CIPE. Archey says a potential grantee in Czechoslovakia is "on the radar screen."

Though CIPE is a newcomer in the Warsaw Pact nations, it is an old hand at administering grants elsewhere in the world. Since 1984, the center has made more than 100 grants to organizations in about three dozen nations in Central and South America, Africa, and South and East Asia.

CIPE has many success stories to tell, says Program Coordinator John D. Sullivan, but one of its most gratifying is Argentina. CIPE has been more active there than in any other nation, supporting organizations with varied agendas.

Most recently, CIPE has supported activities of two Argentine think tanks, the Institute of Economic Studies of Latin America and Argentine Reality (the Spanish acronym is IEERAL) and the Latin American Economic Research Foundation. These groups analyze the impact on business and the economy of laws and pending legislation and regulations. The newly elected Argentine government of President Carlos Saul Menem is relying heavily on these organizations as he strives to solve his nation's chronic debt and inflation problems through a series of free-enterprise reforms, says Sullivan. Menem has named the founder of the IEERAL, Domingo Cavallo, minister of foreign affairs and chief debt negotiator, Sullivan points out.

The American business community will continue helping Argentina revitalize its economy, U.S. Chamber President Richard L. Lesher recently pledged to Menem, who was in New York to outline his economic plan to U.S. business and labor leaders.

PHOTO : In New York: U.S. Chamber President Richard L. Lesher; Chairman David A. Morse of the New

PHOTO : York Society for International Affairs; Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem.