A few Sub-Saharan countries, by improving their business environment, have begun to attract more substantial foreign direct investment than other African countries with bigger domestic markets and greater natural resources. Like Ireland and Singapore, perhaps they can become competitive...

This paper looks at firm-level evidence on the African business environment from surveys undertaken for Investment Climate Assessments by the World Bank in 2000-2004. These surveys confirm a pattern of generally low "factory-floor" productivity, and show that this is partly due to business...