Private Sector Development, Privatization, and Industrial Policy

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  • Publication
    Creating Markets in Eswatini : Strengthening the Private Sector to Grow Export Markets and Create Jobs - Country Private Sector Diagnostic
    (Washington, DC, 2022-09) International Finance Corporation
    Eswatini is facing multiple challenges. It was already experiencing weak economic growth before the COVID-19 pandemic, a reflection of longstanding, deeply rooted issues such as fiscal unsustainability, declining private investment, weakening productivity and competitiveness, and falling export diversification and complexity, compounded by the impact of climate shocks. It shifted from a private investment–led higher-growth model to a government spending–led lower-growth model after the end of apartheid in South Africa. With weak investment in productive sectors, Eswatini’s job market failed to keep pace with an expanding, younger labor force, leading to a large informal sector. Eswatini’s public sector–driven growth model is unsustainable under current fiscally constrained conditions, and there is a need to reduce and reprioritize public spending. An assessment of existing sectoral data and consultations with Eswatini’s private sector and policy makers suggest that four sectors can help drive the export-led private sector growth model. To return to an export-led growth model, Eswatini needs to increase export competitiveness by advancing regulatory reforms and improvements in trade logistics that include regional collaboration to address trade facilitation constraints. Finally, given the country’s vulnerability to climate risks, policies to foster economic resilience amid extreme weather events (mainly droughts that affect agriculture) and improve disaster preparedness need to be pursued. The private sector must adapt to this challenge and work with the government to improve climate resilience.
  • Publication
    Creating Markets In Namibia : Creating Resilient and Inclusive Markets - Country Private Sector Diagnostic
    (Washington, DC, 2022-07) International Finance Corporation
    Since achieving independence in 1990, Namibia’s remarkable growth has been fueled by foreign direct investment and enabled by prudent economic management. Since 2016, however, growth has declined steadily and the economy fell into recession, exposing the vulnerability of Namibia’s economic growth model to external and climate shocks. These challenges were exacerbated by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, an economic slowdown in neighboring South Africa, worsening terms of trade on the back of declining global demand and commodity prices, a decline in Southern African Customs Union (SACU) revenues, and the effects of crippling droughts on agricultural and industrial production. Namibia has very high levels of poverty and inequality, which are largely driven by high levels of unemployment. The primary objective of this Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) is to identify near and medium-term reform opportunities to revitalize the private sector and help reposition Namibia’s growth on a green, resilient, and inclusive trajectory. This CPSD explores priority reform opportunities to address five cross-cutting bottlenecks: (1) enhancing the role and performance of the state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector through a more effective competition policy environment; (2) strengthening implementation of the public-private partnership (PPP) framework to expand private investments, especially in infrastructure; (3) leveraging the potential for digital transformation of the economy; (4) addressing inefficiencies in logistics and trade facilitation; and (5) tapping opportunities in the water sector for green and resilient growth. The diagnostic then looks in depth at three sectors prioritized by the Namibian government - renewable energy, climate-smart agribusiness, and housing, and provides recommendations for reducing sector-specific bottlenecks to stimulate growth potential.
  • Publication
    Creating Markets in Botswana - A Diamond in the Rough: Toward a New Strategy for Diversification and Private Sector Growth - Country Private Sector Diagnostic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06) International Finance Corporation
    Diamonds have been at the center of Botswana’s growth miracle for decade - but the urgency to diversify is stronger than ever. Although Botswana’s economy has undergone transformation over the past decades, the shift has been largely into non-tradable services, with limited gains in employment, income equality, and export diversification. In addition, Botswana’s high vulnerability to climate change, which affects all major sectors of the economy, underscores the need to strengthen Botswana’s response to climate factors as a basis for renewed, sustainable growth. A positive growth outlook and steps taken as part of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis response should give the government new impetus to accelerate reforms. Success in diversifying the economy will depend on the decisive implementation of structural measures to increase private sector participation in nonmineral exports and transformative sectors. The dominant role that the government of Botswana still plays in large parts of the economy, particularly through its footprint as a shareholder in companies in the corporate sector, is a critical constraint that inhibits the entry and success of private sector participants. Gaps in infrastructure, access to finance, and skills are additional key constraints to employment and productivity growth. A coordinated approach to financing entrepreneurship and policies to increase uptake of digital finance can help close the gap. Trade barriers are another key cross-cutting constraint for the private sector, and a greener path for the economy can be unlocked by facilitating improved trade in environmental goods and services (EGS). Three key recommendations for the energy sector are as follows. The first recommendation is the fast tracking of instruments to facilitate investment in energy infrastructure development, including independent power producer (IPP) licensing, and procurement guidelines and processes. The second recommendation is the enhancement of the institutional capacity and governance model of the Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority (BERA). The third recommendation is the development of credit-enhancement and risk-mitigation strategies and supporting instruments to attract and mobilize private sector investment.
  • Publication
    Creating Markets in Mali: Mobilizing the Private Sector for Economic Resilience and Recovery - Country Private Sector Diagnostic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-04) International Finance Corporation
    Until the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (SARS-CoV2) COVID-19 pandemic and despite the deteriorating security situation, Mali’s economic growth averaged five percent since 2014, on par with its long-term potential. Mali’s fragile state status has also taken a toll on economic activity and social welfare by reducing access to markets, threatening food security, and degrading human capital indicators. With an increasing debt burden resulting in limited fiscal space to address persistent security risks and to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of Mali is compelled to refocus the role of the state and unleash the potential of the private sector to boost productivity growth, to diversify the economy away from a narrow base, and to ensure inclusive economic and social welfare for all Malians. The growth model will be readdressed around energizing investment, creating resilient markets, and building back better for a more resilient recovery via (a) improving the business environment; (b) crowding-in private participation in the delivery of infrastructure and certain public services; (c) ensuring that remaining state-owned enterprises and private firms compete on equal terms - that is, upholding competitive neutrality principles; (d) expanding public-private partnerships in key sectors, through transparent and competitive procurement; and (e) leveraging digital solutions by further enhancing digital infrastructure that would, in turn, increase the uptake of digital financial services and digital platforms for key sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, and digitize government services (e-government).
  • Publication
    Creating Markets in Mozambique: A study conducted by the World Bank Group in partnership with SIDA - Country Private Sector Diagnostic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06) International Finance Corporation
    The Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) is a joint IFC-World Bank diagnostic that aims to make concrete recommendations for crowding-in private sector investment and financing in client countries. The CPSD analyzes the country context, including the state of the private sector, and identifies cross-cutting as well as sector-specific opportunities and constraints. The analysis presented in the Mozambique CPSD will feed into various upcoming World Bank Group (WBG) engagement reports for the country, including the IFC country strategy and the WBG Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD). Similarly, it is expected that the CPSD will be of interest to the government, the private sector, and other development partners. Policy makers in Mozambique can take advantage of the CPSD to undertake reforms for improving the opportunities for private sector investment in priority economic sectors. The CPSD seeks to provide answers to the main development questions for private sector development in Mozambique, including which traded sectors, beyond extractives, have the most potential to drive growth and productive employment, and what reforms are needed to support this change.
  • Publication
    Creating Markets in Malawi: The Road to Recovery : Turning Crisis into Economic Opportunity - Country Private Sector Diagnostic
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06) International Finance Corporation
    Malawi is at a turning point in its political, social, and economic trajectory. Lazarus Chakwera was sworn in as Malawi’s sixth president in June 2020. This marked a historic moment: the first time in Africa that an opposition candidate won a presidential election following initial results being overturned. After widespread unrest prior to the election, Malawians, especially the youth, have been demanding greater accountability, an end to corruption, and tangible progress on eradicating persistent poverty levels that exceed 70 percent of the population. The average gross national income (GNI) of a Malawian is the third lowest in the world, just US$380 as of 2019. The Chakwera administration will need to find a way to unify the country’s fractured political landscape and deliver on development promises. On top of these challenges, the new administration must also navigate the ongoing and evolving economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gross domestic product (GDP) growth expectations for 2020 have been lowered from 4.8 percent to 0.8 percent. Recent efforts to build fiscal and institutional resilience have helped but need to be strengthened. The pandemic’s fallout has weakened the country’s macroeconomic foundations, and the overall risk of debt distress is now high. Meanwhile, human capital gains are at risk. Poverty reduction is expected to stagnate, and overall poverty could potentially worsen. The pandemic will likely exacerbate existing inequalities in economic opportunities for women. Women-owned firms, for example, are primarily concentrated in informal agriculture and services, sectors that lack basic social protections to buffer against economic distress. Female farmers, for example, generally have lower access to productive inputs, information, and liquidity than male farmers, so in times of crisis, their farm productivity and food security can be hit harder.
  • Publication
    Creating Markets in Kenya: Unleashing Private Sector Dynamism to Achieve Full Potential
    (International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2019-07-31) International Finance Corporation
    Kenya has the opportunities and resources to stimulate sustainable economic growth and development, but its potential has been constrained by under-investment and low firm-level productivity. Altogether, its development has not been sufficiently sustainable or equitable to transform the lives of ordinary citizens. Poverty remains high, with thirty-six percent of Kenyans living under the national poverty line, whereas the richest ten percent of the population receive forty percent of the nation’s income. This country private sector diagnostic (CPSD) sheds light on how the private sector can more effectively contribute to advancing the country’s developmental goals. Applying a sectoral lens, it puts forward operational recommendations highlighting strategic entry points for diversification and growth and addresses key constraints to private sector engagement. It also seeks to inform World Bank and IFC strategies, paving the way for joint programming to create markets and unlock private sector potential.
  • Publication
    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.
  • Publication
    Creating Markets in Rwanda: Transforming for the Jobs of Tomorrow
    (International Finance Corporation, Washington, DC, 2019-03) International Finance Corporation
    Rwanda has made unsurmountable strides along its development path. Rwanda has placed among the world’s fastest-growing economies, climbing the development ladder from second-poorest in the world in 1994 to sit ahead of nineteen other countries. Today, job creation lies at the heart of Rwanda’s development challenge. The government of Rwanda (GoR) recognizes the urgency of creating new jobs. The new thirty-year Vision for the period up to 2050, which is currently being finalized, elaborates the country’s long-term development goals. The core of transformation for prosperity is developing high-value and competitive sectors, to transition the population and economy from subsistence agriculture toward industry and high-skilled services. The purpose of the Rwanda country privates sector diagnostic (CPSD) is to identify market opportunities and constraints in sectors that advance the country’s development objectives. By assessing the landscape of private sector investment in the country, the CPSD identifies specific constraints to private sector investment and productivity growth, concrete opportunities that could materialize in the short term, and the reforms that will enable this materialization. It then discusses how specific actions by the public sector in collaboration with the private sector by filling gaps in public investment, reforming regulations, and addressing market failures could unleash sectors’ private investment potential.
  • Publication
    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.