This evaluation assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank Group in helping its member countries improve their investment climates, within the context of the World Bank Group's overall mission of poverty reduction and sustainable development.

The Indian economy has emerged as one of the world?s fastest growing economies in the past few years. Greater investment, increased productivity, and deeper integration in the world economy have been the key growth drivers. Nonetheless, three main challenges remain: insufficient job creation in the formal sector; large and growing disparities between states; and increasing, but still low, productivity. India's Investment Climate identifies what the government can do to tackle these challenges by improving the investment climate for three key sectors, manufacturing, retail and software-ITES. Th.

Private firms are at the forefront of the development process, providing more than 90 percent of jobs, supplying goods and services, and representing a significant source of tax revenues. Their ability to grow, create jobs, and reduce poverty depends critically on a well-functioning investment climate--defined as the policy, legal, and institutional arrangements underpinning the functioning of markets and the level of transaction costs and risks associated with starting, operating, and closing a business. The World Bank Group has provided extensive support to investment climate reforms. This evaluation by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) assesses the relevance, effectiveness, and social value of World Bank Group support to investment climate reforms as it relates to concerns for inclusion and shared prosperity. IEG finds that the World Bank Group has supported a comprehensive menu of investment climate reforms and has improved investment climate in countries, as measured by number of laws enacted, streamlining of processes and time, or simple cost savings for private firms. However, the impact on investment, jobs, business formation, and growth is not straightforward. Regulatory reforms need to be designed and implemented with both economic and social costs and benefits in mind; IEG found that, in practice, World Bank Group support focuses predominantly on reducing costs to businesses. In supporting investment climate reforms, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation use two distinct but complementary business models. Despite the fact that investment climate is the most integrated business unit in the World Bank Group, coordination is mostly informal, relying mainly on personal contacts. IEG recommends that the World Bank Group expand its range of diagnostic tools and integrate them in the areas of the business environment not yet covered by existing tools; develop an approach to identify the social effects of regulatory reforms on all groups expected to be affected by them beyond the business community; and exploit synergies by ensuring that World Bank and IFC staff improve their understanding of each other's work and business models.

This book tracks the process through which the Foreign Investment Advisory Service (FIAS) of the World Bank Group advised the government of Latvia from 1998 to 2004 on ways to improve the business environment, achieve higher rates of economic growth, and thereby alleviate poverty.

This book assesses dimensions of the investment climate in Nepal that shape opportunities for investments, employment, and growth of private firms. It includes data and analysis from five surveys on challenges to the investment climate, and provides policy recommendations to address these challenges.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the constraints facing the development of rural non-farm enterprises in Indonesia. Recent years have seen a substantial effort by the Indonesian government to improve the investment climate. To date, much of this effort has focused on the constraints faced by businesses at the national level. However, if Indonesia is to be successful in creating jobs and reducing poverty across the archipelago, this will require improving the investment climate for the 15.7 million micro and small enterprises that employ more than half of all the non-farm workers in the country. This book brings together leading Indonesian and international academics to consider seven key constraints that RNFEs face: labour regulations and practices; infrastructure; competition and marketing; knowledge transfer and technology; access to credit and financial services; local taxation and user charges; and insecurity. In each case the authors draw on the Indonesian Rural Investment Climate Survey, a unique dataset of more than 2,500 RNFEs, to identify the size and nature of the constraints, the way in which they impact upon enterprise growth and the implications for policy. In addition, a key chapter estimates the strength of the linkage between agriculture and non-agricultural activities in rural areas, showing that agricultural revitalization is an essential complement to the development of the non-farm economy. "Understanding the rural investment climate in both slow- and fast-growing economies has taken on new urgency in the wake of the world food crisis. The rural non-farm economy often provides half or more of the income of farm families and is especially important for food-deficit rural households hard-hit by rising food prices. The Indonesian Rural Investment Climate Assessment is the "gold standard" for how to achieve this understanding. It is a delight to see it published and available to a wide audience." - C. Peter Timmer, Visiting Professor, Program on Food Security and Environment, Stanford University; Non-Resident Fellow, Center for Global Development

Firms and entrepreneurs of all types-from microenterprises to multinationals-play a central role in growth and poverty reduction. Their investment decisions drive job creation, the availability and affordability of goods and services for consumers, and the tax revenues governments can draw on to fund health, education, and other services. Their contribution depends largely on the way governments shape the investment climate in each location-through the protection of property rights, regulation and taxation, strategies for providing infrastructure, interventions in finance and labor markets, and broader governance features such as corruption. The World Development Report 2005 argues that improving the investment climates of their societies should be a top priority for governments. Drawing on surveys of nearly 30,000 firms in 53 developing countries, country case studies, and other new research, the Report explores questions such as: What are the key features of a good investment climate, and how do they influence growth and poverty? What can governments do to improve their investment climates, and how can they go about tackling such a broad agenda? What has been learned about good practice in each of the main areas of the investment climate? What role might selective interventions and international arrangements play in improving the investment climate? What can the international community do to help developing countries improve the investment climates of their societies? In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Bank's new program of Investment Climate Surveys, the Bank's Doing Business Project, and World Development Indicators 2004-an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.

Soft computing techniques are innovative tools that use nature-inspired algorithms to run predictive analysis of industries from business to software measurement. These tools have gained momentum in recent years for their practicality and flexibility. The Handbook of Research on Fuzzy and Rough Set Theory in Organizational Decision Making collects both empirical and applied research in the field of fuzzy set theory, and bridges the gap between the application of soft computational approaches and the organizational decision making process. This publication is a pivotal reference for business professionals, IT specialists, software engineers, and advanced students of business and information technology.

In the first IEG evaluation of World Bank Group support to youth employment, the findings reveal short-term effects, limited positive results, and lack of evidence. The focus is on investment climate, labor market, and skills. An evidence-based, strategic approach using youth-specific, complementary interventions and multisectoral teams is needed.

Private enterprises in advanced economies have been learning to use information and communication technology (ICT) to innovate and transform their processes, products, services and business models, significantly improving productivity and competitiveness. Moreover, the ICT industry itself has become a major source of job creation and a contributor to economic growth and business transformation. A key question today is whether and how developing countries can learn to benefit from the ICT revolution, and what roles the government and private sector can play. Already, a number of developing countries have been inspired by the example of India and China, and are now seeking to jump on the outsourcing bandwagon. Nevertheless, with few exceptions in the developing world, little attention has been paid by policymakers and practitioners to invest systematically and proactively in ICT-enabled growth, poverty reduction and grassroots innovation. Most communities and small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries, for example, face multiple constraints to adopting and leveraging this general purpose technology, and lack the capabilities for maximizing its potential. In "Enabling Enterprise Transformation", Nagy Hanna draws on his rich experience of over 35 years at the World Bank and other aid agencies as a development strategist and ICT policy expert, the most current research, and best practices from around the world to provide practical tools for promoting economic and social transformation through ICT. He assesses various initiatives to develop and diffuse ICT, such as innovation funds, incubators, parks, public-private partnerships, and comprehensive promotion programs. He argues for the strategic options now open for developing countries to participate in ICT production, to deploy ICT to transform industries and services, and to leverage ICT as a new national infrastructure for improving the business environment and enhancing the competitiveness of the whole economy. The challenge for leaders in developing countries is to create such social and institutional dynamics for learning about ICT use and adaptation at many levels. Lessons gained so far from programs to build these social learning and innovation capabilities at the institutional and grassroots levels should be shared among developing countries, and a dialogue among business leaders, policymakers, development agencies, educational institutions, and the general citizenry must be advanced.