The Investment Climate Facility (ICF) brings together governments, private sector entrepreneurs and multilateral institutions to implement business reforms in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since its launch, the ICF has increased committed donor funding more than 50% from 80 million last year to over $120 million today. It has established a Governance Charter, outlining policies and procedures to promote transparency and establish clear lines of responsibility and accountability, and implemented standardized selection criteria for project funding and agreed on eight indicators against which to measure its performance. 

This lunch discussion on October 16, 2007 featured ICF's first Chief Executive Officer, Omari Issa. Issa discussed the scope and nature of the Facility and its potential to bring together relevant players from the government and private sector to reform the business environment. Vijaya Ramachandran, Visiting Fellow, Center for Global Development, provided remarks and Dennis de Tray, Vice President, Center for Global Development, moderated the discussion.