Bangladesh has set up an ambitious target of attaining middle-income status by 2021. To achieve this objective, the economy needs to grow at a sustained rate of 7.5-8 percent annually and this would in turn require an increase in private investment to at least 26.6 percent of GDP from 22 percent in 2016-17.
... See More + Despite the fact that the government has implemented several policy reforms since 2008, investors still face a number of challenges in establishing and operating a business in Bangladesh. This is reflected in the World Bank Group’s Doing Business report, which finds that Bangladesh ranks 177th amongst 190 countries, making it one of the lowest-ranked economies in the South Asia region. Businesses seeking to operate in Bangladesh have to cope with multiple approvals from several institutions and agencies. A potential private investor has to navigate more than 150 government services to obtain the necessary approvals to start and operate a business in Bangladesh. The processes are regulated by over 36 agencies such as the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), Office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) and the Department of Environment (DoE), with little inter-agency coordination. Navigating the uncoordinated, non-transparent and cumbersome workings of the agencies imposes a high cost on domestic and foreign investors. In addition, the uncertainty and unpredictability of service delivery hampers business activities and operational planning. These challenges affect Bangladesh’s competitiveness and reputation as an investment destination.
See Less -
Robust and inclusive identification systems are crucial for development, as enshrined in sustainable development goal (SDG) target 16.9, which mandates countries to provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.
... See More + For governments, modern identification systems allow for more efficient and transparent administration and service delivery, a reduction in fraud, and leakage related to transfers and benefits payments, increased security, accurate vital statistics for planning purposes, and greater capacity to respond to disasters and epidemics. Standards establish universally understood and consistent interchange protocols, testing regimes, quality measures, and best practices with regard to the capture, storage, transmission, and use of identity data, as well as the format and features of identity credentials and authentication protocols. Therefore they are crucial at each stage of the identity lifecycle, including enrollment, validation, deduplication, and authentication. Standards help ensure that the building blocks of identity systems are interoperable and testable, and can meet desired performance targets. The effectiveness of an interconnected and interoperable identification system cannot be ensured without standards. This catalog of technical standards can serve as a source of reference for the stakeholders in the identification systems ecosystem.
See Less -
Developing a proper governance and regulatory framework for blockchain-based applications will be essential to providing market participants the stability they need to fully engage with the technology and allowing innovation to flourish.
... See More + Given the global, multi-sectoral reach of blockchain, regulators, and industry will have to work in a collaborative manner to ensure they can both experiment and learn, and so shape the future of the technology in a way that benefits all parties and society as a whole.
See Less -
The First Open Government and Public Financial Management Development Policy Operation Project of Tanzania had an unsatisfactory overall outcome, an unsatisfactory performance by the Bank and the monitoring and evaluation quality was unsatisfactory.
... See More + The lessons learned were: (1) Political context needs to be taken into consideration at the design stage to identify all conceivable risks and potential mitigation measures. (2) Implementing several Development Policy Operations (DPOs) was challenging for the government. (3) Broader objectives may have dominated quality control and review process. (4) Donor driven reforms without strong ownership are unsustainable. (5) Deeper analysis of the demand for reforms prior to launching the operation would have helped improve program performance. (6) Each key policy reform areas should be supported by adequate complementary assistance to guarantee better reform implementation.
See Less -
Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR4498 AUG 28, 2018
Ratings for the ICT Sector Development Project for Afghanistan were as follows: outcomes were moderately unsatisfactory, the Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and the monitoring and evaluation quality performance was modest.
... See More + Some lessons learned included: the national backbone network’s deployment was completed successfully and delivered positive results to Afghanistan by increasing access to affordable broadband services. The backbone constructed under this Project, in combination with networks supported by other initiatives funded by GoIRA, now forms the basis of a robust communications system. With the Policy enacted, the operators (other than Aftel) can use the backbone through the open access arrangement and/or to make direct investment in fiber optics. Given the significant immediate- and long-term impacts that broadband connectivity can generate, it might have been worthwhile to include a rural connectivity component, as was done in the Tanzania: Regional Communications Infrastructure Project (RCIP 3, P111432, IDA 46124, $100 million). This would have been less ambitious and more in line with the nature of the financing mechanism of the project (emergency recovery loan) than objective two and three, which will be a better fit for the next phase. The transfer of skills from consultants to the agency’s staff is important. The PMO benefits from hiring consultants to support project implementation; though long-term dependence on consultants may hinder capacity within the government agencies. The consultants in the PMO should be hired to perform high-level strategic tasks, one of which should be training and mentoring (permanent) staff in the implementing agencies. Special attention should be paid to develop the M&E framework especially in FCV countries that have major security concerns. The Project showed that it is challenging to identify M&E indicators that are trackable. It is important to ensure that the M&E framework is designed to capture the most relevant data that will feed into the evaluation of the project’s PDO. This underscores the importance to formulate the theory of change, to identify a project’s achievements, and methods by which the achievements will be met. It helps build consensus among all project stakeholders in the project’s design, and casts a light on binding constraints to achieve expected outcomes.
See Less -
Implementation Completion and Results Report ICR4450 AUG 10, 2018
