KAMPALA, Uganda – Uganda is hosting an inter-Africa Ease of Doing Business Initiative (EDBI) 2015 conference this week beginning tomorrow in Kampala.

The overall aim is to share knowledge and experiences with an agenda to finding a lasting strategy to facilitate bigger and better business and investments in Africa.

At the last EDBI which was hosted in Maputo, Mozambique, Uganda was selected to host this year’s conference after beating six other counties. Uganda was selected mainly because of its attractive business environment and the ongoing reforms in trading across borders, business licensing and registration, and the computerization of the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) and land registry.

According to Carolyn Ndawula, a Program Manager, Trade and Competitiveness, the World Bank Group, the initiative is aimed at sharing knowledge and looking at loopholes in different governments that are hindering trade developments and finding solutions as a one strong continent.

“We have members like Mauritius, and South Africa whose economies are growing into first world status. By meeting and sharing different experiences, I am convinced that different governments will benefit from this conference. As the World Bank, we are here to facilitate this conference in terms of finances and guidance. We look forward to receiving a bigger number of Ugandans who will participate in this conference for the betterment if our country,” Ndawula said

The EDBI 2015 under the theme ‘Connecting the dots: How Public Reforms Improve the Ease of Doing Business’ will bring together over an estimated 300 participates including 100 government officials and policy makers from participating countries and 200 local delegates including MPs development partners and private sector representatives. The conference is being organised by the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MFPED) in collaboration with World Bank groups.

The Doing Business report that was first launched in 2002 by the World Bank Group, analyzes regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during its life cycle, including starting up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes and resolving insolvency.

The sub- Saharan Africa’s (SSA) performance has been steadily improving over the years. In the 2015 report, 47 economies in SSA (75%) implemented at least one regulatory reform making it easier to do business. five SSA countries including Benin, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal and Togo were among the top ten global reformers. the region had the highest number of reforms in the number of reforms in the world with a total of 75 out of 230 globally.

Dr Peter Ngalegize, the National Coordinator, competitiveness secretariat NFPD, while addressing a media briefing last week said African countries have demonstrated good practice I reforming their business environment but still being challenged by slow reforms in some business government institution. According to him the East African community had registered great improvements with it being ranked the 117th out of 185 countries but that it could do even better if it established a stronger cultural of peer learning to grow with in the reforming countries.

“Uganda welcomes the opportunity offered by the EDBI conference to learn from other reforming countries while showing the strong reform agenda in Uganda. Implementing reform that durably improve business environment is a complex process. Learning from the best practice and adapting it are crucial to enable impacting reforms,” Dr Ngalegize said.

During the launch of the 2010 doing business report in Kigali, Rwanda, in early 2009, several countries in in the African region requested the World Bank (WB) to facilitate, a learn and share event on doing business reforms. Mauritius, the top ranked developing country in Africa offered to host the first event and to share the experience. Following a success pilot of ‘peer to peer’ learning model held in Mauritius in 2010, Rwanda hosted the second peer to peer workshop for government in eastern and southern Africa in March 2011. The third meeting was held in Gaborone, Botswana in March 2012, in 2023, it was held in Sandston, South Africa while last year’s meeting was held in Maputo, Mozambique.

Source: The East African Business Week

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