World Bank’s Business Ready Project

May 2, 2023

The World Bank Group has recently launched a new project called Business Ready, which aims to assess the business and investment climate in economies worldwide. This new initiative replaces the Doing Business project, which had been the World Bank Group’s flagship program for assessing the ease of doing business for over two decades.

Objective of the Business Ready Project

The objective of the Business Ready project is to make each country’s economic environment ready for a dynamic private sector. This will be done by assessing and ranking the ease of doing business in each economy, identifying areas of improvement, and providing recommendations to policymakers and stakeholders.

Expert Input and Approach

The Business Ready project has been developed by a team of professionals both from inside and outside the World Bank Group, comprising members from governments, private entities, and civil society organizations. The project focuses on ten topics, including Business Entry, Business Location, Utility Services, Labor, Financial Services, International Trade, Taxation, Dispute Resolution, Market Competition, and Business Insolvency.

Methodology and Safeguards

The Business Ready project uses a comprehensive set of indicators and scoring methodology, which is detailed in the Business Ready Methodology Handbook. To ensure the integrity of the assessments, the World Bank Group has put in place protocols and safeguards, which are specified in the Business Ready Manual and Guide. It will ensure transparency by making all information collected by the project publicly available on the project website.

Assessment and Reporting

The Business Ready project will assess 180 economies annually in its final year, with the first annual report set to be published in the spring of 2024. The project will provide a detailed assessment of the business-enabling environment, including strengths, weaknesses, and recommendations for reform.

Impact of Previous Assessments

The World Bank Group’s assessments of the business-enabling environment worldwide have spurred nearly 4,000 regulatory reforms over the past two decades, leading to a significant improvement in the ease of doing business in many economies.

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