Luis Aldo Sánchez-Ortega 3 rd Regional Competitiveness Conference in Southeast Europe Przno, May 20-22, 2008 in South East Europe 2008

Extends Doing Business indicators beyond the most populous city to other cities Combines the media appeal of Doing Business with a strategy to actively involve local governments in reform process It creates demand for other WB/IFC products and converts WB/IFC BEE teams into reform facilitators Why expand Doing Business to the subnational level? Diagnostic tool Reform instrument M&E instrument Creates baseline Allows locations to compete locally and globally Entry point in countries averse to international comparisons Puts regulatory reform on political agenda Comparisons within countries are strong drivers of reform Uncovers bottlenecks and local good practices Promotes peer to peer learning Measures progress over time Creates an incentive to maintain reform effort even when governments change

Albania:Shkodra Vlora Bosnia and Herzegovina:Banja Luka Mostar Croatia:Osijek Šibenik Varaždin Macedonia:Bitola Montenegro:Nikšić Pljevlje Kosovo:Priština Prizren Serbia:Kruševac Užice Vranje Zrenjanin Doing Business in SEE… covering 16 cities

Doing Business in SEE… measuring 4 indicators Benchmarking the ease doing business in the SEE region Selected indicators:  Starting a business  Dealing with construction licenses  Registering property  Enforcing contracts Why these indicators? Because these are areas where local governments have administrative and legislate competence

Subnational Doing Business has projects all around the globe Countries: 32 Cities: 230

Countries/Regions Global ranking DB 2008 Hypothetical city ranking South East Europe India13479* Pakistan7652 OECS * Colombia 6635 M é xico 4333* Egypt Morocco China8367 Subnational DB uncovers best practices within a country *2007 data

Great initial impact. Political support for reform efforts has continued even after two rounds of local elections and one presidential election since first benchmark. Capacity-building strategy: methodology transferred to local think-tank with support from Mexican Government and FIAS quality control Led to reform assistance requests to IFC from 3 states. Doing Business in Mexico 2006, 2007 and 2008: sustained development results

Links to specific country subnational websites General description Detailed information in 5 languages 2 nd phase: Merge global and SDB databases Launching conference presentations Names of all the people involved in SBD projects Services for clients and public in general

Country reports’ general description Main findings Data analysis Rankings Free reports in local language and English National reform simulator

Doing Business