22-23 November 2010
Counterpart : World Bank,EAC,SADC,COMESA
Objective/Description:
The World Bank and the Regional Multidisciplinary Centre of Excellence (RMCE) launched during this meeting a regional initiative to improving the environment for Doing Business in Eastern and Southern Africa. The objective of the regional initiative is to support countries through peer to peer learning in designing and implementing policies that will improve the business environment in their countries and ultimately increase their world share of investment and exports. The initiative will be piloted by a steering committee which has been formed during the November 2010 meeting. This steering committee is made up of top performing and reforming countries, and the RMCE acting as the Secretariat with the support of regional and multilateral organizations, among them those participating in the meeting: the World Bank, the European Union, the African Development Bank, COMESA, IOC, the African Center for Economic Transformation, the African Securities Exchange Association, and NEPAD Business Forum.
Outputs:
The initiative was inaugurated with a high level opening ceremony addressed jointly by the Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Hon PravindJagnauth and World Bank Group Managing Director, Dr. NgoziOkonjo-Iweala. The technical sessions of the meeting were attended by 26 participants representing four countries (Mauritius, South Africa, Botswana, Rwanda), the RMCE, and the regional and multilateral institutions named above. The agenda was organized in four two-hour sessions with the last session devoted to summarize the agreements achieved. Among them, the following event related to this initiative will be a 3-day peer learning workshop to be held in March in Rwanda, hosting the event in its quality of top reforming country in the Doing Business areas covered by the initiative.
Outcomes:
The impact of the initiative in terms of outcomes cannot be assessed yet but the ultimate expected impact is to increase investment and exports in the participating countries as instruments of economic growth and human development.
At this early stage and building upon the recognition that each country must identify its own priority areas, the first phase of the initiative pretends to focus on a maximum of four indicators during three years. All the countries in the region which are actively reforming, and also those willing to share and learn with a view toward reforming, will be eligible to participate in the initiative