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Highlights key outcomes of the work of the MENA-OECD Investment Programme from 2005-2007, including reforms achieved to date in investment policies and promotion, corporate governance, financial-sector development, and tax policies.
Highlights key outcomes of the work of the MENA-OECD Investment Programme from 2005-2007, including reforms achieved to date in investment policies and promotion, corporate governance, financial-sector development, and tax policies.
'From Privilege to Competition: Unlocking Private-Led Growth in the Middle East and North Africa' sheds new light on the difficult quest for stronger and more diversified growth in a region of unquestionable potential. It underlines the need to strengthen reforms in many areas specifically, by reducing policy uncertainty and improving credit and real estate markets. It also highlights other important issues that restrain the credibility and impact of reforms in many parts of the region: conflicts of interest between politicians and businesses, an investment climate that favors a few privileged firms, and a dominant private sector that often opposes reforms. The book recommends that countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) engage in more credible reform agendas by improving the implementation of policies in a manner that will reduce discretion and privileges. This renewed commitment to stronger growth would entail several developments. First, governments will need to reduce opportunities for rent-seeking and foster competition. Second, they will need to work to reform institutions: private sector development policies will need to be systematically anchored in elements of institutional and public sector reforms in order to reduce discretion and opacity and improve the quality of services to firms. Third, they will need to mobilize all stakeholders, including larger representations from the private sector, around dedicated long-term growth strategies. Short of such a fundamental shift in the way private sector policies are formulated and implemented, investor expectations that governments are committed to reform will be limited. It will take political will and time to support sustained reforms that credibly convince investors and the public that changes are real, deep, and set to last. MENA countries are endowed with strong human capital, good infrastructure, immense resources, and a great deal of untapped creativity and entrepreneurship. The economic and social payoff of embarking on a more ambitious private-led growth agenda could thus be immense for all.
Renewing the social contract, one of the pillars of the new World Bank Group strategy for the Middle East and North Africa, requires a new development model built on greater trust; openness, transparency, inclusive and accountable service delivery; and a stronger private sector that can create jobs and opportunities for the youth of the region. Recent analytic work trying to explain weak job creation and insufficient private sector dynamism in the region point to formal and informal barriers to entry and competition. These barriers privilege a few (often unproductive) incumbents who enjoy a competition-edge due to their connections or ability to influence policy making and delivery. Policy recommendations to date in the field of governance for private sector policymaking have been too general and too removed from concrete, actionable policy outcomes. This report proposes -for the first time- to fill this policy and operational gap by answering the following question: What good governance features should be instilled in the design of economic policies and institutions to help shield them from capture, discretion and arbitrary implementation? The report proposes an innovative conceptual and measurement framework that encapsulates the governance features that could shield policies from capture, discretion and arbitrary enforcement that limits competition. The report offers a menu of operational and technical entry-points to enhance privilege-resistant policy making in a concrete way, that is politically tractable in different country contexts.
This publication reviews measures taken to support investment policy and governance reforms in Iraq.
"This paper addresses the issue of the low level of private investment in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with special emphasis on the role of governance. Based on the existing literature, the authors categorize what types of governance institutions are more detrimental to entrepreneurial investments. They then estimate a simultaneous model of private investment and governance quality where economic policies concurrently explain both variables. The empirical results show that governance plays a significant role in private investment decisions. This result is particularly true in the case of "administrative quality" in the form of control of corruption, bureaucratic quality, investment-friendly profile of administration, and law and order, as well as for "political stability." Evidence in favor of "public accountability" seems, however, less robust. The estimations also stress that structural reforms-such as financial development and trade openness-and human development affect private investment decisions directly, and/or through their positive impact on governance. These findings bring new empirical evidence on the subject of private investment in the developing world and in MENA countries in particular. "--World Bank web site.
¿¿the world is changing and so should the region. After decades of state domination of economic activity, many governments around the world are relying increasingly on the private sector to foster economic growth.¿ There is a growing consensus that the time has come for governments and private sector leaders of the Middle East and North Africa to forge a new partnership for development. However, the question is: what kind of partnership should the two parties seek in order to ensure sustainable economic development? This volume attempts to address this question. To make the investigation tractable, the papers deal with four key facets of the government-private sector interface: the business environment, privatization, infrastructure, and two activities that induce transaction costs, tax administration and government procurement. The volume derives its content from papers on the theme of public-private partnerships discussed at the second Mediterranean Development Forum (MDF2) held in Marrackech, Morocco on September 3-6, 1998. The papers presented here are intended to contribute to the ongoing debate on the development opportunities and challenges facing the countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
The world's attention to the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has often been dominated by headline issues: conflict, sanctions, political turmoil, and rising oil prices. Little of this international attention has considered the broad range of development challenges facing this diverse group of countries. Breaking the Barriers reflects the collected thinking of the World Bank's Office of the Chief Economist for the MENA Region on the long-term development challenges facing the region and the reform priorities and strategies for effectively meeting these challenges. It.
Examines the challenges to private sector growth in 12 Middle East and North African (MENA) countries, assessing comparative performance against a number of indicators and focusing on the special role of SMEs and entrepreneurial activity. Highlights the variation among countries in private sector dynamism and performance, the major government policy initiatives supporting private sector and SME activity in each country, and the perspectives of government officials, researchers, and other stakeholders on research, policy, and institutional capacity needs. Concludes with a framework for guiding a comprehensive set of policies and strategies to unleash the potential of entrepreneurship as a platform for future private sector growth.