Policy Reforms Boost Women's Participation In Biz

Policy Reforms Boost Women's Participation in Business

World Bank, USAID chief say bureaucratic barriers falling: Countries around the world increasingly are reforming their policies to make it easier to start a business, changes that are benefiting women significantly, the World Bank reports.

In its recently released Doing Business 2008 report, the World Bank says countries ranked highest on its "ease of doing business" scale "are associated with higher percentages of women among entrepreneurs and employees." The bank ranked 178 countries in such policy areas as paying taxes and entrepreneurs' ease in obtaining licenses, registering property and getting credit. It also ranked countries' investor protections, contract enforcement and cross-border trade laws.

"When reformers simplified business start-up, business registrations shot up. The increase in first-time business owners was 33 percent higher for women than men," according to the report.

The reforms are helping women move from the "informal economy," where they had little job security and few social benefits, into the formal economy where they can access credit and own property, Henrietta Fore, the acting director of U.S. foreign assistance and acting administrator of the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID) told USINFO.

"Since women are disproportionately in the informal sector, they benefit disproportionately" from reforms, Fore said. "Women have enormous potential to bring prosperity to this world."

Additionally, countries that are encouraging women to start businesses "are starting to see the dividends in their [economic] growth rates," Fore said.

She said encouraging women in education and entrepreneurship is important. When Fore visits a country she looks to meet with women graduate students, women business owners and women thinking of starting a business, and such groups as chambers of commerce and professional associations that can help women make contacts who help them build a business, she added.

Fore said that, in particular, USAID is seeing more interest in Middle Eastern countries to "open up opportunities for women" in education.

Public-private partnerships, especially in education, are key to helping women enter the business world, Fore said. In a September speech in Chicago, she said she will chair a new U.S. committee to coordinate partnerships among bilateral and multilateral donors, nongovernmental groups, foundations and the private sector.

Among the countries enacting reforms to make doing business easier, Egypt ranked at the top of the World Bank's list. The World Bank reports that Egypt established a new private credit bureau to make it easier for women and men borrowers to get loans and cut the time it takes to export and import goods.

The other top 10 reformers, in order, are Croatia, Ghana, Macedonia, Georgia, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, China and Bulgaria.

Croatia, for instance, made its business registration processes available online and Macedonia eliminated minimal capital requirements to start a business.

"The case of Georgia ... is terrific," Fore said. Georgia ranked 18th overall for the ease of doing business. It was 100th in the 2006 rankings.

Fore said that 80 percent of countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia adopted at least one reform in the past year, while 52 percent of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa did the same.

Lesotho, for instance, passed a law in late 2006 allowing married women to own and transfer property and to engage in legal transactions without their husband's consent, the report says.

In the overall rankings, Singapore was first followed by New Zealand, the United States, China (Hong Kong), Denmark, the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia and Iceland.

ENDS

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