Improving the Business Enabling Environment

The Business Enabling Environment business line works with governments, civil society, and private firms to foster conditions for private sector development by promoting improved regulation and regulatory enforcement. The current activities in this area are focused at the municipal level and include:

• Awareness Building – Doing Business Report (DB) and Municipal Scorecard The Doing Business Report measures the business climate in 178 countries of the world (selected capital cities) while the Municipal Scorecard measures the business climate in different cities within the same country.: IFC Advisory Services in Latin America and the Caribbean uses both as benchmarks to highlight regulatory bottlenecks and to publicize successful simplification efforts. These efforts are often undertaken in conjunction with national and/or local governments using conferences and or local media.
• Demonstrating Success – Simplifying Business Regulations: At the request of local governments in the region, IFC provides technical assistance for simplification projects that reduce the regulatory impediments identified by the DB Report and/or the Municipal Scorecard.
• Replication and Leverage – National Simplification Programs and the Municipal Simplification Toolkit: Typically a pilot project in the capital city or business center of a country is followed by a state, region or country-wide program, implemented with local partners, to encourage and coordinate simplification projects in a large number of municipalities and states. To scale up, IFC has developed a “how-to-guide” which includes practical guidelines on how to evaluate times and costs associated with regulatory procedures; effectively reengineer the procedures as well as standard methods to evaluate the results. The toolkit is used during the implementation process and to share good practices with other interested institutions.