Investment security in the Mediterranean

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Investment Security in the Mediterranean (ISMED) Support Programme

Launched in November 2012, the ISMED Support Programme seeks to increase infrastructure investment in the Southern Mediterranean Region by providing advisory services to host governments on reducing the legal risk of specific investment projects. It will also bring government and private sector representatives together in a policy dialogue to help ensure that project-specific recommendations lead to broader reforms.

The Programme will:

Evaluate, through project-specific assessment missions and related studies, the level of investment protection provided by local legal, regulatory and sectoral frameworks
Identify gaps in protection and make policy recommendations to address them
Support an informal network of experts exchanging views on innovative ideas to improve investment security in the Mediterranean region, in the form of twice-yearly working group meetings
Provide relevant information concerning guarantee products to potential investors

Projected support sequence for an infrastructure project

Statement of need. Following an explicit request to support a dedicated infrastructure project by the competent authorities of the concerned partner country, the ISMED Support Programme Team will prepare a statement of need documenting the project, its expected economic impact in terms of employment generation, and the scheduled interventions by International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and donors.
In-country assessment and assistance missions will then be conducted by the ISMED Support Programme Team. These missions, working with the competent authorities, will identify the short and longer term actions required to strengthen the legal and regulatory environment of the infrastructure project under consideration, coordinate between institutional levels, identify investment climate shortcomings, and prioritise the implementation of appropriate policy remedies.
These missions will also initiate a multi-stakeholder dialogue drawing on OECD good practices and instruments and aiming to ensure positive spill-over effects of project specific work for the economy of the concerned partner country as a whole.

The ISMED Support Programme is implemented by the MENA-OECD Investment Programme with main financing by the European Union of € 1.5 million. An Advisory Committee will be set up to provide guidance and implementation assistance.

In parallel, the European Union has launched the ISMED Risk and Cost Sharing Toolkit of the EU Neighbourhood Investment Facility (NIF). Operational since May 2008, the NIF is an innovative financial instrument of the European Neighbourhood Policy, whose primary objective is to finance, with a mix of grants and loans, key infrastructure projects in the transport, energy, social and environment sectors, as well as to support private sector development (in particular small and medium enterprises) in the Neighbourhood Region.

The ISMED Risk and Cost Sharing Toolkit will provide targeted measures like support to risk-sharing mechanisms (making funds available to help private investors by reducing their exposure to risk) and guarantee schemes.