Publication: The Role of Subnational Studies in Driving Regulatory Reforms
Loading...
Published
2025-02-05
ISSN
Date
2025-06-13
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The World Bank’s Subnational Business Ready (Subnational B-READY) project, the successor to the Subnational Doing Business reports, offers a comprehensive framework for evaluating local business environments. This framework aims to identify regulatory obstacles, promote peer-to-peer learning, and support private sector growth. By adapting the Global B-READY methodology to the specific needs and contexts of individual economies at the subnational level, Subnational B-READY studies enable national and local governments to implement informed and targeted policy reforms that can drive economic development. While the B-READY framework represents a forward-looking approach, this brief leverages the extensive data and experience from Subnational Doing Business studies, which remain relevant for understanding reform dynamics at the subnational level. By showcasing case studies from four economies (Nigeria, Mexico, Kazakhstan, and South Africa), this brief shows how subnational studies - built upon the Doing Business legacy - have pinpointed critical challenges and guided data-driven reforms tailored to regional contexts, ultimately enhancing local business climates and fostering economic resilience.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Iavorskyi, Maksym; Sutanovac, Predrag. 2025. The Role of Subnational Studies in Driving Regulatory Reforms. Global Indicators Briefs; No. 29. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/43335 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication The Legal and Regulatory Framework for Environmental Impact Assessments : A Study of Selected Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002)Environmental impact assessment, or EIA as it is known, is a procedures for evaluating the impact, proposed activities may have on the environment. In recent years, significant strides have been made to build a legal foundation for EIAs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Whereas EIAs typically used to be carried out only to meet requirements of foreign donors, they are now mandated in twenty two Sub-Saharan countries, as an important element of domestic environmental law, and policy. This publication traces the development of EIA, both in terms of national policies, and international law, and, analyzes EIA-related laws and regulations in those countries. The substantive components of EIA requirements, as well as the similarities, and differences of the various national statutes, are noted and commented upon. Special attention is paid to the role, and degree of public participation, for the further development of law, and policy with respect to environmental impact assessments in Sub-Saharan Africa.Publication Subnational Data Requirements for Fiscal Decentralization : Case Studies from Central Eastern Europe(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003)Poverty is an outcome of interaction between economic, social, and political forces. The World Bank has emphasized poverty reduction in its programs and operational activities. With the launching of initiatives such as the poverty reduction strategy papers and the Comprehensive Development Framework, it has made considerable progress in integrating antipoverty programs into other lending operations. As mentioned in the World Development Report 2000/2001, Attacking Poverty (World Bank 2001b), poverty has many dimensions. It is not defined only by income, but also has political and sectoral (access to services) dimensions. Today, in most countries subnational governments are responsible for the delivery of services that affect these dimensions of poverty. Because subnational governments control increasingly higher shares of total public resources, their competence in designing public policies and delivering public services becomes crucial in influencing the level of poverty. Indeed, the literature on fiscal decentralization presents evidence that local services, especially health and education, are highly correlated with the incidence of poverty (Bird and Rodriguez 1999). In this context, the need for subnational demographic, social, economic, and fiscal data is becoming more evident at a time when subnational governments are involved in national and global objectives of poverty reduction. Statistical capacity building at the subnational level aims to help statistical offices and subnational governments produce the basic microdata necessary not only for monitoring progress in poverty reduction, but also for ex ante policy formulation by subnational governments.Publication From Compliance to Learning(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2017-04-10)From Compliance to Learning: A System for Harnessing the Power of Data in the State of Maryland builds on a 2015 World Bank report that assessed Education Management Information Systems (EMISs) in the state of Maryland. That report uncovered a successful system, and this one expands on lessons learned and ways to apply them in practice. The goal of this study is to distill Maryland’s good practices in education data systems and share them in a way that is useful to education stakeholders interested in harnessing the power of data to strengthen learning outcomes. This study also examines the history of education data collection and use in the United States with a focus on Maryland, including a review of federal and state legislation that has helped to shape Maryland’s education data policies and systems. In the digital age, information is power. When information is effectively harnessed and aligned with student learning, it carries the potential to radically transform the delivery of education, as well as the sector as a whole. Increasingly, education systems are moving away from using education data narrowly for compliance purposes; instead, they are embracing data as a tool to drive systemwide innovation, professionalization, and, most importantly, learning. Whether to prioritize and optimize data and information systems around student learning is no longer an option; it is imperative for education systems that aim to excel and achieve strong learning outcomes. Over the past several decades, fundamental shifts have occurred in the way that education data are collected, managed, and used. Today real-time learning data inform classroom instruction; predictive analytics identify at-risk youth before they drop out of school; and data from preschool to workforce are linked to help guide education reforms. These represent just a few of the innovative ways that schools and other stakeholders across the United States are harnessing data to improve education. The state’s success in establishing an enabling environment for education data systems and data utilization has built a strong foundation. Maryland effectively aligned a complex, statewide data system to deliver value. Prioritization of integration and alignment was key. The state then launched a longitudinal data system center that would drive an adaptive education system with insights that track students from pre-kindergarten to entry in the workforce. Data across the state are high quality and follow strict rules to preserve privacy and enhance security. Maryland’s utilization of data also offers valuable lessons. The statewide data system supports policy makers and decision makers in planning and management, as well as teachers, students, and families in instruction and learning. Consistent across Maryland’s structuring and use of data systems were a strong vision and a road map to execute that vision. Maryland’s journey offers many lessons, not only for countries with advanced data systems but also for those in less developed stages. While the technology and information exist to achieve data for learning, harnessing data within the right information system and ensuring utilization are challenging endeavors. An array of factors must align—leadership, policies, processes, and resources, to name a few—to effectively harness data to support and drive strong learning outcomes.Publication Using Data Analytics in Public Procurement Operational Options and a Guiding Framework(Washington, DC, 2022)The world spent $11 trillion on public procurement in 2018, amounting to 12 percent of global GDP (Bosio et al. 2022). Given these substantial volumes, public procurement can contribute to several objectives: savings, integrity, economic growth, inclusiveness, and sustainability. Procurement Data Analytics (PDA) can contribute to the achievement of these objectives. It refers to the use of data to generate actionable insights and evidence to monitor outcomes, inform the policy dialogue, guide reform efforts, and assess the impact of reforms and strategies in public procurement. Despite a growing academic literature and impact evaluations on public procurement, the existing body of evidence is still scarce and limited to a few countries. This impedes drawing generalizable lessons on optimal policies and strategies to achieve the multi-layered objectives of the public procurement function, therefore highlighting the need for a larger adoption of data analytics tools in this area. With the increasing adoption of electronic government procurement (eGP) systems and the corresponding digitization of transaction records, public procurement has enormous untapped potential for the application of data analytics tools. This paper highlights the successful approaches and good practices of previous PDA work and provide useful resources to World Bank teams with country engagements relating to public procurement. Possibly interesting to a broader audience, an analytical framework is also discussed to guide the application of data analytics tools in public procurement, data sources, the open government agenda, and data standards.Publication Governance Reform : Bridging Monitoring and Action(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007)Governance reform: bridging, monitoring, and action lays out a broad framework for analyzing and monitoring governance in developing countries. It identifies fourteen core indicators for governance monitoring- both broad measures of overall patterns and specific actionable measures that can be used to guide reforms and track progress. The book also summarizes good practices for reforming public bureaucracies and checks and balances institutions (including parliaments, the justice system, media and information, and local governance); highlights improvements in transparency as a relatively low-cost and low-key way of deepening government accountability to civil society; and suggests ways to complement top-down reforms with approaches that focus directly on improving service provision and the investment climate (such as strengthening the bottom-up accountabilities of service providers to communities, firms, and citizens).
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication G5 Sahel Region Country Climate and Development Report(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-07-01)The five countries of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger (the G5) in the Sahel region of Africa are among the least developed countries in the world. The now regular and growing climate shocks are causing large losses in outputs, reducing human capital accumulation, and leading to potentially devastating ecological and economic tipping points in the region. This World Bank country climate development report (CCDR) has examined the most critical actions and policy changes needed to accelerate the region's economic recovery, sustainable and inclusive development, and adaptation to the impacts of climate change. This report has three main messages. First, the opportunities for a resilient and lower-carbon development of the G5 countries are significant. They can reverse environmental degradation and maximize the benefits of climate action for the poor. Second, rapid, resilient, and inclusive growth is both the best form of adaptation to climate change and the best strategy for meeting development goals in an effective, sustainable, and productive manner. Third, the costs of inaction are far greater than the costs of action. Early and targeted action on policies and programs presented in this report can move the G5 Sahel countries towards a greener, more resilient, prosperous, and inclusive future.Publication Jobs in a Changing Climate: Insights from World Bank Group Country Climate and Development Reports Covering 93 Economies(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-05)The World Bank Group’s Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs) provide a crosscutting look at how countries’ development prospects, and the job opportunities they offer to their people, can be threatened by climate impacts and supported by climate policies. Climate change and policies affect jobs through impacts on productivity, energy and material efficiency, and physical, human, and natural capital. They can also transform employment opportunities, especially through complementary measures that help workers and firms adapt to and benefit from new technologies and production practices. Prepared by the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), CCDRs integrate country perspectives, climate science and economic modeling, private sector information, and policy analysis to assess how countries can successfully grow and develop their economies and create jobs despite increasing climate risks and while achieving their climate objectives and commitments. Each CCDR starts from the country’s development priorities, opportunities, and challenges, and is developed in close consultation with governments, businesses, and civil society, ensuring the recommendations reflect national priorities. By combining evidence on adaptation, resilience, and emissions pathways, CCDRs highlight where climate action can reinforce development and job creation, and where targeted policies are needed to manage risks and smooth labor market transitions. Taken together, these elements can help create local jobs, ensure economic transitions are just and inclusive, and equip workers and firms to navigate the disruptions and opportunities of a changing climate and changing technologies.Publication Western Balkans 6 Country Climate and Development Report(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2024-07-16)This Regional Western Balkans Countries Climate and Development Report (CCDR) stands out in several ways. In a region that often lacks cohesive regional alliances, this report emphasizes how the challenges faced across countries are often common and interconnected, and, importantly, that climate action requires coordination on multiple fronts. Simultaneously, it illustrates the differences across countries, places, and people that require targeted strategies and interventions. This report demonstrates how shocks and stressors re intensifying and how investments in adaptation could bring significant benefits in the form of avoided losses, accelerated economic potential, and amplified social and economic spillovers. Given the region’s high emission and energy intensity and the limitations of its current fossil fuel-based development model, the report articulates a path to greener and more resilient growth, a path that is more consistent with the aspiration of accession to the EU. The report finds that the net zero transition can be undertaken without compromising the economic potential of the Western Balkans and that it could lead to higher growth than under the Reference Scenario (RS) with appropriate structural reforms.Publication Kyrgyz Republic Country Climate and Development Report(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-03)This Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) on the Kyrgyz Republic aims to support the country’s development goals amid a changing climate. The CCDR considers two policy scenarios up to 2050: the business-as-usual (BAU) and high-growth scenarios. As it quantifies the likely impacts of climate change on the Kyrgyz economy between now and 2050, the report highlights key government actions to best prepare for and adapt to climate impacts (referred to as “with adaptation” measures), with a particular focus on the time horizon up to 2030. The CCDR also outlines a path to net zero emissions by 2050 (referred to as “with mitigation” measures, “decarbonization,” or, simply, “net zero 2050”), highlighting associated development co-benefits.Publication Senegal Country Climate and Development Report(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-11-05)Climate action offers an opportunity to safeguard development gains and accompany the ambitious transformation Senegal is embarking on to achieve its objective of reaching middle income status in the next decade. While the country was among the fastest growing economies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), poverty reduction was slow, vulnerabilities persisted, and inequalities increased. In addition, overall productivity remained low, with lagging structural transformation, high informality, and low job creation. To attain its middle-income goal, Senegal must initiate a series of reforms for a productive, sustainable, and inclusive growth model, with climate considerations at the center given the country’s high vulnerability. Senegal’s high climate vulnerability is caused by the country’s coastal exposure and reliance on natural resources for food, jobs, and growth (partly a consequence of its slow structural transformation). With temperatures soaring, precipitation expected to decrease, and erosion threatening 75 percent of the coastline at term, Senegal’s population and assets are under high risk. The poorest are particularly vulnerable, with 55 percent of total households teetering on the edge of poverty because of recurrent shocks. Without action, annual economic losses could reach 3-4 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as soon as 2030 and further increase to 9.4 percent by 2050, wiping years of per capita income growth and eroding any potential human capital accumulation. Overall, climate change could push two more million Senegalese in poverty by mid-century. Building resilience and leveraging the low-carbon economy will help Senegal realizing its growth ambitions, contributing to a more productive, sustainable, and inclusive development pathway. The macro-economic analysis for this CCDR finds that adaptation measures in selected sectors could bring GDP gains of about 2 percent by 2030, and between 0.5 and 1 percent afterwards (for climate financing needs of about 0.9 percent of GDP in the period to 2030 and 0.1 percent afterwards). Adaptation could also reduce poverty headcount, with 40 percent less people pushed into poverty by climate change compared to no adaptation action. In addition, emission reductions could reach 20MtCO2e per year over the period to 2050, from interventions in forestry, improved cooking services, urban transport, waste management, and energy production. The energy transition provides an opportunity to meet both development and climate objectives, exceeding NDC targets and putting the country well on track for net zero by 2050, but significant downside risks remain, linked to delays in the deployment and financing availability for renewable generation and domestic gas. Senegal’s formidable renewable energy potential (chiefly around solar) offers the lowest cost generation option to meet rising energy demand while accelerating decarbonization. At term, the country could play a leading role in decarbonizing the region though export opportunities and bolster resilience across the regional grid. In the short term, given constraints to the fast deployment of renewables, the transitional use of domestic gas will help phase out expensive and high-emitting coal and Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) generation, while balancing the electricity system and lowering the cost of electricity. Climate action will require a financing of US$8.2 billion over 2025-30 (in present value, at 6 percent per year), or 4.5 percent of discounted cumulative GDP over the same period, and US$10.6 billion over 2031-50 (in present value terms), or 2.0 percent of discounted cumulative GDP over the same period. Water security, sustainable (urban) transport, and the energy transition account for the largest share. Importantly, climate action is expected to bring significant benefits over time, beyond climate adaptation and mitigation – including health or jobs, (as in the primary sector, with 155,000 jobs created, of which 80 percent in agriculture). Many benefits could not be properly estimated, implying that the returns from climate action might well be underestimated.