Continuing Reforms to Stimulate Private Sector Investment
Continuing Reforms to Stimulate Private Sector Investment

Author: Asian Development Bank

Publisher: Asian Development Bank

Published: 2016-04-01

Total Pages: 117

ISBN-13: 9292573969

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A business environment that supports private sector-led growth is the key to long-term sustainable poverty reduction. This has been recognized by successive Solomon Islands’ governments who have implemented fundamental reforms that have modernized the environment for doing business in the country with some far-reaching reforms. This private sector assessment (PSA) analyzes the reforms to date and suggests further policy actions and priorities in the areas of business law reform, promoting economic opportunities for women, infrastructure, state-owned enterprises, the tax system, and the financial system. The policy recommendations in the PSA provide the basis for discussions between the Government of Solomon Islands, the private sector, and other stakeholders regarding future reform priorities that will contribute to the country’s resources being used most productively. This PSA was produced by the Pacific Private Sector Development Initiative---a regional technical assistance facility cofinanced by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Government of Australia, and the Government of New Zealand.

Investment Climate Reform--going the Last Mile
Investment Climate Reform--going the Last Mile

Author: Benjamin Herzberg

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 51

ISBN-13:

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"Herzberg examines the Bulldozer Initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, an innovative reform methodology that successfully overcame the lack of political will and capacity at the government level through a bottom-up approach. Using an innovative grassroots and public awareness methodology, the initiative mobilized the local business community to bulldoze barriers by identifying concrete legislative changes and advocating for their adoption and implementation. By delivering fast results--50 reforms in 150 days--the initiative won the confidence of entrepreneurs and empowered them to institutionalize permanent grassroots reform committees. The force of this lobby group created political will by putting public pressure on the politicians to do their part to enact the reforms. Most important, it carried investment climate reform the last mile by delivering concrete, quantifiable results in all sectors of the economy. Over time, the initiative is establishing a dynamic of reform and public-private partnership that will facilitate the tackling of more complicated structural reforms. Complementing the systemic approach and framework reform efforts of governments and international agencies, competitiveness partnerships mobilize the local business community to catalog concrete problems across the full spectrum of investment climate concerns, pinpoint solutions, campaign for their adoption, and follow up on reform implementation. The author attempts to determine the applicability of competitiveness partnerships to different settings by modeling the interactions between several key success factors, thus providing a pertinent tool for development professionals, government officials, and private sector advocates who wish to establish a renewed implementation dynamic through this kind of results-oriented reform process. This paper--a product of the Investment Climate Unit--is part of a larger effort in the unit to communicate best practices in investment climate reform"--World Bank web site.

Investment Climate Reforms
Investment Climate Reforms

Author: World Bank World Bank

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2015-11-02

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1464806292

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Private firms are at the forefront of the development process, providing more than 90 percent of jobs, supplying goods and services, and representing a significant source of tax revenues. Their ability to grow, create jobs, and reduce poverty depends critically on a well-functioning investment climate--defined as the policy, legal, and institutional arrangements underpinning the functioning of markets and the level of transaction costs and risks associated with starting, operating, and closing a business. The World Bank Group has provided extensive support to investment climate reforms. This evaluation by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) assesses the relevance, effectiveness, and social value of World Bank Group support to investment climate reforms as it relates to concerns for inclusion and shared prosperity. IEG finds that the World Bank Group has supported a comprehensive menu of investment climate reforms and has improved investment climate in countries, as measured by number of laws enacted, streamlining of processes and time, or simple cost savings for private firms. However, the impact on investment, jobs, business formation, and growth is not straightforward. Regulatory reforms need to be designed and implemented with both economic and social costs and benefits in mind; IEG found that, in practice, World Bank Group support focuses predominantly on reducing costs to businesses. In supporting investment climate reforms, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation use two distinct but complementary business models. Despite the fact that investment climate is the most integrated business unit in the World Bank Group, coordination is mostly informal, relying mainly on personal contacts. IEG recommends that the World Bank Group expand its range of diagnostic tools and integrate them in the areas of the business environment not yet covered by existing tools; develop an approach to identify the social effects of regulatory reforms on all groups expected to be affected by them beyond the business community; and exploit synergies by ensuring that World Bank and IFC staff improve their understanding of each other's work and business models.

Nepal's Investment Climate
Nepal's Investment Climate

Author: Gabi G. Afram

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2012-04-04

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0821394665

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This book assesses dimensions of the investment climate in Nepal that shape opportunities for investments, employment, and growth of private firms. It includes data and analysis from five surveys on challenges to the investment climate, and provides policy recommendations to address these challenges.

West Bank and Gaza
West Bank and Gaza

Author: United States United States Department of State

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2016-04-23

Total Pages: 26

ISBN-13: 9781532888519

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Despite some progress, the PA continues to rank poorly in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business category, receiving a ranking of 143 out of 189 in 2015. Beginning in June 2007, the PA has demonstrated a renewed determination to improve the investment climate and to attract foreign investment, undertaking a number of significant reforms. These broad economic policies are aimed at stimulating growth through private sector investment and consolidating public finances. The National Development Plan (NDP) for 2011-2013, the PA's reform and development framework from earlier this decade, highlighted the need for sovereign control over its borders and developing domestic resources to attract investment for sustainable economic development. Through 23 sector strategies contained in the NDP, the PA focused on private sector growth in agriculture and tourism in particular, and committed to continued legal and institutional reform, strategic investments in national infrastructure, and negotiated international trade agreements. Currently, the 2014-2016 NDP is used to guide the PA. The NDP emphasizes the need to create an additional 600,000 jobs during the next decade to maintain at least 10 percent annual growth in GDP. As with the previous NDP, the current version is structured along the lines of four key sectors: economic development and employment, good governance and institution building, social protection and development, and infrastructure. Within the economic sector, the NDP actively seeks to encourage private sector and foreign investment, improve Palestinian infrastructure, increase the competitiveness of Palestinian companies, and encourage entrepreneurship in the West Bank and Gaza, among other goals. The NDP caveats, that any economic progress is inextricably linked to resolution of the political conflict with Israel, as well as overcoming internal divisions between the West Bank and Gaza.

Reforming Infrastructure
Reforming Infrastructure

Author: Ioannis Nicolaos Kessides

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13:

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Electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railways, and water supply, are often vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. This results in weak services, especially in developing and transition economies, and for poor people. Common problems include low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and investment shortfalls. Many countries over the past two decades have restructured, privatized and regulated their infrastructure. This report identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection. It also assesses the outcomes of these changes, as well as their distributional consequences for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. It recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance, identifying pricing policies that strike a balance between economic efficiency and social equity, suggesting rules governing access to bottleneck infrastructure facilities, and proposing ways to increase poor people's access to these crucial services.

Successful Transitions from Public to Private-Sector Led Growth: Lessons for Benin
Successful Transitions from Public to Private-Sector Led Growth: Lessons for Benin

Author: Aissatou Diallo

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-12-03

Total Pages: 28

ISBN-13: 1589068548

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Many Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, like Benin, have scaled up public investment during the last decade. Such a strategy contributed to the improvement of infrastructure, but also to a build-up of debt vulnerabilities. Looking forward, the planned fiscal consolidation will result in some restraint of public spending, and, in particular, public investment. In this context, maintaining or even raising the region’s economic growth will require an offset by the private sector. The analysis draws lessons from countries that have successfully transitioned from public investment to private investment-led growth using a global sample starting in the mid-1980s. These lessons highlight policies that have been crucial in fostering a rebound of private investment in the wake of a contraction of public investment. The analytical framework proposed by Hausman, Rodrik and Velasco (2005) is used to identify and classify such policies. Finally, the paper analyses how the identified policies could help Benin achieving a smooth transition from public to private sector-led growth.

Private Finance for Development
Private Finance for Development

Author: Hilary Devine

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-05-14

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 1513571567

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The Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated the tension between large development needs in infrastructure and scarce public resources. To alleviate this tension and promote a strong and job-rich recovery from the crisis, Africa needs to mobilize more financing from and to the private sector.

Reforms, Opportunities, and Challenges for State-Owned Enterprises
Reforms, Opportunities, and Challenges for State-Owned Enterprises

Author: Edimon Ginting

Publisher: Asian Development Bank

Published: 2020-07-01

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 9292622838

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State-owned enterprises (SOEs) play significant roles in developing economies in Asia and SOE performance remains crucial for economy-wide productivity and growth. This book looks at SOEs in Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, and Viet Nam, which together present a panoramic view of SOEs in the region. It also presents insights from the Republic of Korea on the evolving role of the public sector in various stages of development. It explores corporate governance challenges and how governments could reform SOEs to make them efficient drivers of the long-term productivity-induced growth essential to Asia's transition to high-income status.