Private Sector Development, Privatization, and Industrial Policy

96 items available

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Creating Markets in Ethiopia: Sustaining Progress Towards Industrialization

(International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2019-03-20) World Bank ; International Finance Corporation

Ethiopia has made impressive strides along its developmental path. Job creation is now the critical development challenge, raising the importance of the private sector agenda. After more than a decade of sustained public sector-led growth, the government is revising its growth strategy to allow for a much greater role for the private sector in driving growth and job creation. Broadening the base for job creation beyond light manufacturing toward a wider range of high productivity agricultural and services activities will help to overcome the uneven spatial distribution of manufacturing jobs across the country. Ethiopia has a number of advantages that it can leverage to attract the investment needed for job creation. These include rapidly improving transport and energy infrastructure, low labor costs, a large and growing domestic market, cheap power, an ideal climate, and preferential market access to the European Union, the United States, and other major markets. The purpose of the Ethiopia country private sector diagnostic (CPSD) is to support the transition to a private sector- driven growth model that advances the country’s development objectives and, in particular, delivers the necessary jobs. It identifies investment opportunities that can materialize in the short term, and the reforms that are needed to enable these opportunities to emerge. It also discusses how specific actions by the public sector, in collaboration with the private sector, in filling gaps in public investment, reforming business regulations and trade policy, addressing market failures, and enhancing the efficiency of key backbone services and sectors, while tackling gender inequalities, can fully unleash the potential of private sector investment.
South Africa Digital Economy Assessment

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018) World Bank

An assessment of South Africa’s digital economy has been launched as part of the World Bank Group’s digital economy for Africa (DE4A) initiative, which leverages an integrated and foundations-based diagnostic framework to examine the present level of digital economy development across Africa. The assessment will map the current strengths and weaknesses that characterize the national digital economy ecosystem, as well as identify challenges and opportunities for future growth. Rapid digital transformation is now re-shaping the global economy, permeating virtually every sector and aspect of daily life - changing the way one learns, work, trade, socialize, access public and private services and information. Well-functioning digital economies are thus expected to achieve faster economic growth, offer innovative products and services, as well as create more job opportunities. Assessing where strategic investments and interventions need to be made is a critical first step to enabling digital economy growth. This background paper will provide an overview of digital entrepreneurship in South Africa.
Sierra Leone Growth Pole Diagnostic : The Growth Poles Program

(Washington, DC, 2013-08) World Bank

This First Phase Report on Sierra Leone growth poles is the result of a 9 months consultative process led by the Office of the President which specifically requested that the output of this diagnostic be in an engaging format. The fundamental concept of growth poles is that they exploit agglomeration economies and spillover effects to spread resulting prosperity from the core of the pole to the periphery. At the basis of this theory is the assumption that economic development is not uniform over a region. Rather, it concentrates around a geographic feature or economic hub. In particular, it frequently concentrates around a key industry, around which linked industries develop. A growth pole can be used to nurture direct and indirect linkages from the flagship industry to supporting sectors, which vastly expands the employment generation potential of new investments in said flagship industry. The expansion of this key industry implies the expansion of output, employment, related investments, as well as new technologies and new industrial sectors.
Zambia - What Would it Take for Zambia’s Beef and Dairy Industries to Achieve Their Potential?

(World Bank, 2011-06-01) World Bank

This report is a window into a larger initiative, the jobs and prosperity: building Zambia's Competitiveness (JPC) program. The JPC program is a 'joint venture' between the governments of the Republic of Zambia, the Zambian private sector, the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID), the African development bank group and the World Bank Group. As such, the report represents the collective efforts of many people who engaged in this work at different stages in the process. This report is part of a series produced by the World Bank's Africa Finance and Private Sector Development Unit (AFTFP). This report explores the potential contribution that the beef and dairy industries could make to jobs and prosperity in Zambia, and what it will take to achieve this potential. The Zambian government has been looking to increase growth and job creation, and the prosperity resulting from them, by developing a more competitive and diversified economy. This report explores the potential contribution that the beef and dairy industries could make to the government's ambition and sets out what it will take for the industries to achieve their potential. Two main factors provide Zambia with large potential for developing its beef and dairy industries: the country could sustain more than double its current population of cattle; the demand for beef and dairy products in the domestic and regional markets is likely to increase significantly. However, Zambia's beef and dairy industries are currently underperforming and uncompetitive.
Zambia - More Jobs and Prosperity in Zambia : What Would it Take? Based on the Jobs and Prosperity : Building Zambia’s Competitiveness Program

(World Bank, 2011-06-01) World Bank

While Zambia's economy performs well, in macroeconomic terms, low levels of productivity plague industry, and this constrains growth, diversification and prosperity. In recent years, economic growth has averaged 5-6 percent a year, business reforms are being implemented, and investment levels are at an all time high. However, according to the World Economic Forum's global competitiveness index 2010-2011, Zambia is not a competitive place in which to do business (ranking 115th out of 139 countries). Not surprisingly, business productivity tends to be low, and few Zambian industries are internationally competitive. Formal employment is shrinking and rural poverty is increasing. In summary, there is an urgent need to increase productivity, growth and employment. These questions continue to preoccupy policy makers, businesses and civil society especially in light of government's strategy to embrace private sector-led growth and facilitate competitiveness and diversification. The Jobs and Prosperity: Building Zambia's Competitiveness (JPC) Program is an effort to answer these questions and, at the same time, to achieve some concrete results that improve industry productivity and competitiveness. The Zambian government, with support from donors, has, for a long time, been trying to raise prosperity by encouraging more productive businesses, more competitive and diverse industries, and greater employment. Yet these efforts have not generated the results sought. The goal of the JPC Program is to achieve some meaningful progress towards improving industry productivity and competitiveness. The Program focuses on four industries so as to build traction and keep the scope of work manageable. The industries were selected by a group of Zambian stakeholders. The Program facilitated a process through which Zambian stakeholders identified some narrowly defined target results that, if achieved, could help these industries become more productive and then supports initiatives to achieve these results.
Zambia - What Would it Take for Zambia’s Copper Mining Industry to Achieve Its Potential?

(World Bank, 2011-06-01) World Bank

This report is part of a series produced by the World Bank's Africa Finance and Private Sector Development Unit (AFTFP). This report explores the potential contribution that the copper mining industry could make to jobs and prosperity in Zambia, and what it will take to achieve this potential. Copper has for many years played an important role in Zambia's economy, and the performance of the economy has followed the fortunes of copper mining closely. This report investigates the role copper mining could play in achieving the government's objectives of increasing economic growth and jobs in the future. Although 40 percent of the country has not been geologically surveyed, Zambia is recognized by the international mining industry as having good mineral potential. Zambia possesses 6 percent of known world copper reserves. According to the highly-respected Fraser Institute survey of mining and exploration companies, Zambia ranks 26th out of 79 jurisdictions worldwide for mineral potential. In Africa, only the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Burkina Faso have appreciably higher mineral potential scores.
Africa Region Tourism Strategy : Transformation through Tourism - Harnessing Tourism for Growth and Improved Livelihoods

(Washington, DC, 2011) World Bank

This paper presents the strategy vision for Africa of promoting tourism. The strategy relies on four pillars: policy reforms, capacity building, private sector linkages, and product competitiveness. Working closely with client countries, implementation of the Africa Region Tourism Strategy, will focus interventions in these four areas in order to address the persistent constraints to the growth of tourism in Africa. Combined, these interventions will enable high-demand tourism products to compete in the global marketplace. The approach is region-wide; it engages staff across the Bank's Africa Region. Implementation will be led by Africa Region s Finance and Private Sector Development Department (AFTFP). The World Bank Group support to the Africa tourism sector is currently 120 million US dollars. It could reach 500 US dollars million by 2015, generating as many as 300,000 direct formal jobs. The report examines the social, environmental, and economic risks associated with poorly managed tourism, and offers recommendations based on years of experience with tourism projects.This review has provided a snapshot of what Bank has been doing to support tourism development, and its alignment with national strategies in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The findings from this review are anticipated to facilitate future dialogue and negotiations among tourism stakeholders to increase support for tourism development in the region.
Kenya's Tourism : Polishing the Jewel

(Washington, Dc, 2010) World Bank

Kenya's tourism product lines and its source markets function in a cross-sectoral context, which leads to cross-cutting public and private sector issues. Tourism has played a major role in Kenya's development despite economic jolts from time-to-time by internal and external shocks. In 2006 and 2007 the economy grew rapidly and tourism, after a jolt in early 2008, rebounded thanks to market conditions and some solid marketing. The global recession, of course, has since intervened, and Kenya will have to continue with bold and committed actions if it is to regain its iconic position in world tourism. Value chain analysis of safari, coastal, and business and conference tourism highlights constraints and opportunities. Current tourism enterprises are hampered by significant taxation and regulation. Peaks and valleys in tourism flows have exacerbated already limited access to capital necessary for the sector to be competitive. The key to sustainability lies in Kenya's ability to provide a mix of tourism products -safari, coastal, cultural/heritage and business and conference - while protecting the very assets these products celebrate.
South Africa : Enhancing the Effectiveness of Government in Promoting Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise

(Washington, DC, 2007-02) World Bank

This study focuses in particular on the question of whether incentives and support programs have: (a) been correctly targeted to address the diverse and specific needs of small, especially micro, enterprises; (b) been implemented efficiently by the responsible agencies in terms of their delivery and impact, and (c) have been effective in helping smaller firms access a wider market for their products and services. The findings of the micro-enterprise survey, the review of the various incentive programs and the value chain analyses indicate that: (a) among specific constraints faced by the small, micro and medium enterprises (SMME) sector, the skills gap and the issue of access to finance are of particular relevance; and (b) while the economic rationale that existed in 1995 for SMME support remains valid, there is a need to find cost-effective and well-targeted programs that meet that rationale. The issue of skills development, in particular, is central to the medium-term agenda as a means of raising productivity and, hence, employment in segments of industry - both in the formal and informal sectors. As regards the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) programs, there is a need to improve the effectiveness of promotion, strengthening selection criteria, and modulate the process of scaling up of individual programs. As regards other incentives, implementation of the Duty Credit Certification Scheme (DCCS) incentives has not been highly effective in ensuring the compliance of beneficiaries with the training and skills development requirements of the scheme; and this will need to be tightened up in the future.
The Cost of Doing Business in Africa : Evidence from the World Bank’s Investment Climate Data

(Washington, DC, 2005-11) World Bank

This paper looks at firm-level evidence on the African business environment from surveys undertaken for Investment Climate Assessments by the World Bank in 2000-2004. These surveys confirm a pattern of generally low "factory-floor" productivity, and show that this is partly due to business environment-related losses. The surveys also show the importance of high indirect costs in further depressing the "net" productivity of African firms relative to those in other regions. Reforms are moving forward but more slowly than is needed to accelerate growth; this raises the possibility that countries settle into a low-level political equilibrium sustained partly by structural and ethnic cleavages.