About
J.E. Austin Associates, Inc. (JAA) was founded in 1986 for the purpose of assisting businesses, governments, non-profit organizations, educational and financial institutions, and other development organizations around the world to improve productivity, to enhance competitiveness, to strengthen management and strategy implementation, and to facilitate economic development.
JAA’s practice areas have centered primarily on strategy and management consulting for the development of emerging and developing economies. The focus of this work is on increasing business competitiveness and growth, increasing and enhancing public-private dialogue processes, developing mechanisms in the public and private sectors to improve their competitive advantage, boosting trade and investment opportunities, fostering institutional and organizational improvement, intensifying performance of small and micro-sized enterprises, and expanding social development capabilities of an economy holistically.
JAA stresses the “downloading” of tools, methodologies, and approaches to local partners and ensures that they have the best information, lessons, and skills available to identify and implement initiatives most likely to achieve sustainable results. JAA believes that economic growth, competitiveness, and other development challenges can be addressed by involving and empowering local stakeholders to the maximum extent possible.
Since 1986, JAA has completed more than 500 projects in 100 countries. In any given year, JAA’s professional staffers work on projects in more than 30 countries worldwide. JAA’s primary project experience areas include assignments related to:
- Agribusiness and other sectors and industries
- Competitiveness initiatives
- Corporate strategy
- Institutional and organizational change
- Management education and work force development
- Private sector development
- Trade and investment
JAA’s clients include many private companies; national, provincial, and state governments; nongovernmental organizations; and international finance and assistance agencies. JAA has carried out assignments funded by the following donor/lender agencies:
- African Development Bank
- Asian Development Bank
- Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
- European Commission
- GTZ
- Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
- U.K. Department for International Development (DFID)
- United Nations (UNDP, UNIDO, UNHCR, UNICEF)
- U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
- World Bank Group, including the Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS), International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)