The global economic crisis has opened an uncertain chapter, especially for the 2.5 billion people who live on less than $2 a day. Many of them lack access to electricity, or clean water, or basic health care. For at least a decade, economic growth in developing countries helped expand the...

More than 200 million people in the developing world were out of work this year. Over 1 billion are hungry, while millions more are confronting the threat that climate change poses. The United Nations estimates that 884 million people don't have safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion...

This fiscal year the Board of Directors maintained close oversight of International Finance Corporation's (IFC's) efforts to increase and measure its development impact. Directors reaffirmed their support for IFC's strategic directions, including more specific emphasis on agribusiness and small...

This annual report reviews the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) operations activity during FY03, a period that emphasized coordination, and mutually reinforcing efforts among World Bank Group units, particularly in pursuing private sector development in client countries. The report...

Doing Business in Kenya 2010 is a new sub-national report of the Doing business series on the sub-Saharan African region, following the sub-national doing business report on Nigeria. It measures business regulations and their enforcement in 11 Kenyan localities: Eldoret, Garissa, Isiolo, Kilifi,...

Doing Business in Zanzibar 2010 is a new subnational report of the Doing Business series on the sub-Saharan African region, following the subnational Doing Business reports on Nigeria and Kenya. It measures business regulations and their enforcement in the region of Zanzibar, represented by...

Doing Business in Pakistan 2010 is the first country-specific subnational report of the Doing Business series in Pakistan. The report builds on the regional Doing Business in South Asia 2005-7 series, which created quantitative indicators on business regulations for 6 Pakistani cities. Doing...

This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for China. In a series of annual reports, Doing Business assesses regulations affecting domestic firms in 189 economies and ranks the economies in 10 areas of business regulation, such as starting a business, resolving insolvency and...

Doing Business in Kenya 2010 is a new sub-national report of the Doing business series on the sub-Saharan African region, following the sub-national doing business report on Nigeria. It measures business regulations and their enforcement in 11 Kenyan localities: Eldoret, Garissa, Isiolo, Kilifi,...

This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in European Union (EU). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Middle East...