Sound regulations and economic policies as well as strong public sector institutions are critical for an enabling business environment where micro, small and medium firms can grow; be more productive; and create jobs. Through its Business Enabling Environment (BEE) Program, PEP-Pacific aims to improve the conditions for doing business in the countries of the region. The BEE Program is not a stand alone program but rather a cross-cutting program that will look at policy issues and regulations that affect other areas as well. By interconnecting the activities in each of the three programs (access to finance, industry work and BEE) the PEP-Pacific program aims to increase its overall impact with on-the-ground implementation.
The task of improving the business enabling environment requires a range of skills and interventions that must be delivered at multiple points across the entire economic landscape. As such, close coordination with other arms of the World Bank Group will be a central plank of the PEP-Pacific approach. Within this context, PEP-Pacific’s BEE program will focus on areas where it has specific comparative advantage and where it can leverage off its unique understanding and relationship with the private sector. These include its knowledge of capital markets and the issues surrounding the release of credit, its on-the-ground experience with private businesses, especially SMEs and the implications for getting into business and staying in business. PEP-Pacific also works closely with the World Bank/IFC Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS) to utilize the insights provided by the World Bank Group’s annual ‘Doing Business’ publication to foster demand for regulatory reform and to guide the prioritization of reform efforts. The publication ranks key elements of the business environment in each of 175 countries around the globe.
Development of PEP-Pacific’s BEE program started in June 2006. Some examples of early initiatives under the program include:
In Tonga, PEP-Pacific is providing support to Phase II of the World Bank Group’s Regulatory Reform implementation project. A long term regulatory reform implementation specialist is in place in Tonga supporting a high-level public-private regulatory reform task force. Reform priorities under this program include business registration, tax administration, and regulation in the tourism sector.
In Papua New Guinea, a joint FIAS / PEP Pacific project is seeking to gain an understanding of informal enterprises in PNG and the policy and administrative regimes that may cause them to remain informal. The overall intervention is composed of three phases with the first consisting of a survey to obtain baseline data and its use in an analytical study of the types and causes of informality. Importantly, the analytical study will include a solution design element with recommendations targeted at easing the burden of earning a livelihood and assisting some businesses to make the transition to formal economic activity. The second and third phases (which would be the subject of a subsequent project) will consist of the preparation of an Action Plan of new policy and regulatory measures adopted by the Government and its implementation.
PEP-Pacific has also recently commenced developing a BEE program in Timor-Leste. Initial priorities include assistance to strengthen dialogue between the private and public sector, awareness raising on reform priorities on the back of the Doing Business data set, and analytical work to underpin a longer-term program of regulatory reform.
