By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The World Bank on Tuesday said Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for 30 percent of the 231 reforms implemented worldwide during the past year to make it easier for local businesses to start and operate, according to its latest report on ease of doing business.
The report “Doing Business 2016: Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency” finds that 85 developing economies implemented 169 business reforms during the past year, compared with 154 reforms the previous year.
The Doing Business Report affirmed that Sub-Saharan Africa Economies are amongst world’s top Improvers of Business Climate.
According to the report, Sub-Saharan Africa economies continue to implement reforms to improve the business climate for domestic entrepreneurs, with members of the Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) particularly active during the past year.
The report shows that a total of 69 reforms in 35 economies in Sub-Saharan Africa were recorded; of these, 14 of OHADA’s 17 member countries implemented 29 reforms.
“The region also boasted half of the world’s top 10 improvers, i.e. countries that implemented at least three reforms and moved up on the global rankings scale, with Uganda, Kenya, Mauritania, Benin and Senegal,” the report said.
Also, it affirmed the region stood out in implementing reforms under the Getting Credit indicator. “Of the 32 reforms made globally, 14 were carried out in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Kenya and Uganda making significant progress,” the report noted.
“Despite great improvements, governments in Sub-Saharan Africa will need to continue working on closing the gap in many key areas that impact the ease of doing business, especially increasing access to reliable electricity and providing effective commercial dispute resolution – two areas where the region scores the lowest globally,”said Rita Ramalho, Manager of the Doing Business project.
The report says high-income economies carried out an additional 62 reforms, bringing the total for the past year to 231 reforms in 122 economies around the world.
The World Bank says majority of the new reforms during the past year were designed to improve the efficiency of regulations, by reducing their cost and complexity, with the largest number of improvements made in the area of Starting a Business, which measures how long it takes to obtain a permit for starting a business and its associated processing costs.
It disclosed that a total of 45 economies, 33 of which were developing economies, undertook reforms to make it easier for entrepreneurs to start a business. “India, for example, made significant improvements by eliminating the minimum capital requirement and a business operations certificate, saving entrepreneurs an unnecessary procedure and five days’ wait time. Kenya also made business incorporation easier by simplifying pre-registration procedures, reducing the time to incorporate by four days,” the report added.
