Annual Review 2018

The FIAS partnership could not be more important than it is today, as we aim to generate more investment to underpin sustainable job creation and resilient economies in our partner countries. FIAS complements and accelerates our IDA 18 objectives and the IFC 3.0 strategy to achieve the twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity.

Annual Review 2017

Fiscal year 2017 marked the beginning of a new chapter in the FIAS partnership with the World Bank Group with the launch of the new FY17– 21 strategy cycle developed in consultation with our FIAS Development Partners. Our work is organized under three strategic pillars: improving the business environment, expanding market opportunities, and increasing firm-level competitiveness.

FIAS Strategy

The FIAS partnership was established in 1985 to provide advice to governments on reforms needed to improve their investment climates. Today the FIAS program is cofinanced by the World Bank Group and nearly 20 development partners.

Annual Review 2016

With an ambitious new strategy and an implementing team that pulls together expertise from across the World Bank Group, the FIAS Trust Funds are moving ahead in helping client countries build stronger, more resilient and inclusive economies. FIAS—the Facility for Investment Climate Advisory Services—is now in its fourth decade supporting advisory, technical support, and knowledge-based projects tailored to help improve struggling and vulnerable economies and help make emerging economies even stronger.

Organizing for Reform Global Experiences

Document Date : January 01, 2020 Document Type : Working Paper Governments are increasingly turning their attention to the quality of the legal and regulatory environment for firms given the importance of a sound investment climate for economic growth.1 While there is a growing body of research on the impact business environment reforms can have,2 less is known about the way countries can organize to implement successful reform strategies.3 Yet, regulatory reforms often fail to materialize not because of the change they offer, but because of a lack of coordination within government. Creating institutional mechanisms that withstand the test of time and ensuring organizational buy-in increase the likelihood of reforms to succeed.

Trouble in the Making? The Future of Manufacturing-Led Development

Trouble in the Making? The Future of Manufacturing-Led Development highlights the ways technology and globalization are changing how goods will be manufactured in the future and what developing countries can do to ensure they remain competitive. The report looks at advances in technology – automation, advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, 3-D printing – to determine how they will impact jobs in developed and developing countries. (September 2017)

A Step Ahead

A Step Ahead: Competition Policy for Shared Prosperity and Inclusive Growth, published in partnership with OECD, puts forward a research agenda that advocates the importance of market competition, effective market regulation, and competition policies for achieving inclusive growth and shared prosperity in emerging and developing economies. (June 2017)

Coding Bootcamps

Coding Bootcamps: Building Future-Proof Skills through Rapid Skills Training examines a new kind of rapid skills training program for the digital age that aims at low entry-level tech employability (for example, junior developer), providing a tool for entry into the new world of digital jobs. This report studies the characteristics, methodologies, business models, and impact of five coding bootcamps operating directly or through partners in developing countries. (August 2017)

The Innovation Paradox

The Innovation Paradox: Developing-Country Capabilities and the Unrealized Promise of Technological Catch-Up, the first volume of the World Bank Productivity Project, seeks to bring frontier thinking on the measurement and determinants of productivity to global policy makers. This report brings new data sources to explore the innovation “paradox”: despite the potential for very high returns, developing countries invest far less in adopting and inventing new processes and products than advanced countries. (October 2017)

Women and Tourism

Women and Tourism: Designing for Inclusion explains the rationale for integrating a gender lens into tourism development projects, and it includes a set of resources designed to help development professionals and project managers get started and find necessary data. This publication paves the way for more in-depth operational research and data collection on what works for empowering women in the tourism sector. (October 2017)