From Privilege to Competition

Unlocking Private-Led Growth in the Middle East and North Africa

World Bank

• Publisher: World Bank Publications
• Year: 2009
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9780821378892
• Subtopic: Business Development
• Index: Business

'From Privilege to Competition: Unlocking Private-Led Growth in the Middle East and North Africa' sheds new light on the difficult quest for stronger and more diversified growth in a region of unquestionable potential. It underlines the need to strengthen reforms in many areas—specifically, by reducing policy uncertainty and improving credit and real estate markets. It also highlights other important issues that restrain the credibility and impact of reforms in many parts of the region: conflicts of interest between politicians and businesses, an investment climate that favors a few privileged firms, and a dominant private sector that often opposes reforms. The book recommends that countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) engage in more credible reform agendas by improving the implementation of policies in a manner that will reduce discretion and privileges. This renewed commitment to stronger growth would entail several developments. First, governments will need to reduce opportunities for rent-seeking and foster competition. Second, they will need to work to reform institutions: private sector development policies will need to be systematically anchored in elements of institutional and public sector reforms in order to reduce discretion and opacity and improve the quality of services to firms. Third, they will need to mobilize all stakeholders, including larger representations from the private sector, around dedicated long-term growth strategies. Short of such a fundamental shift in the way private sector policies are formulated and implemented, investor expectations that governments are committed to reform will be limited. It will take political will—and time—to support sustained reforms that credibly convince investors and the public that changes are real, deep, and set to last. MENA countries are endowed with strong human capital, good infrastructure, immense resources, and a great deal of untapped creativity and entrepreneurship. The economic and social payoff of embarking on a more ambitious private-led growth agenda could thus be immense—for all.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Glossary of Terms
• Abbreviations
• Overview
• 1. Voices of Entrepreneurs—Stories of Success, Hope, and Challenge
• Part I Private Sector Performance in the MENA Region: Explaining the Untapped Potential
• 2. Searching for Signs of Sustained Private-Led Growth in MENA
• 3. Explaining the Private Sector’s Weak Performance—An Organizing Framework
• 4. Policy Reforms in MENA, Their Credibility, and Their Implementation
• Part II Policies and How They Are Applied: State Intervention and Discretion in Credit, Land, and Industrial Policy
• 5. Access to Credit in MENA: Toward Better Supervision and Less Interference
• 6. Reassessing the State’s Role in Industrial Land Markets
• 7. New Industrial Policies: Opportunities and Perils of Selective Interventions
• Part III Designing Credible Private Sector Reforms Informed by Political Economy Realities
• 8. Institutions and State-Business Alliances Constraining Reforms and Credibility
• 9. Rethinking Private Sector Policy Making in MENA
• References
• Index
• Back Cover