Doing Business Blog - The World Bank Group

Catch DB news on our new blog space....

Almost two years ago, the Doing Business team showed its entrepreneurial spirits by jumping into the blogosphere with the launch of the Doing Business blog. Since then, we've also experimented with virtual reality by launching Doing Business in Second Life, setting up a Doing Business Facebook page, and reporting on the Doing Business roadshows via Twitter.

As we continue to experiment with new ways of communicating the key messages of Doing Business, we have decided to consolidate our efforts and combine with the World Bank Group's Private Sector Development blog. You'll be able to find new content from the Doing Business team under a new "Doing Business" category on the Private Sector Development. We hope to see you over there, and look forward to hearing your thoughts through the comments function!

In the meantime, check out some of our big hits from the last two years:

Simeon Djankov asked where business people get their entrepreneurial spirits from in the very first Doing Business blog post.

Umar Shavurov discussed the harsh winter and the equally harsh business climate in Tajikistan.

Alejandro Espinosa-Wang blogged about Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's insistence that "We can do better" after the launch of Doing Business Colombia 2008.

Kjartan Fjeldsted talked about Madagascar's efforts to make the private sector the main force of growth in its economy, including the creation of Doing Business task force reporting to the Prime Minister.

Doing Business in Kenya 2010

The Doing Business in Kenya 2010 report is out today, just on the heels of the annual Doing Business 2010 report. Globally, Kenya ranked 95 out of 183 economies. Doing Business in Kenya 2010, the first subnational report on Kenya, suggests Kenya could improve its ranking by 17 positions simply by adopting best practices already in place in the 11 Kenyan localities covered in the report:

If a hypothetical city, "Kenyana", were to adopt the best practices already in place in Kenya, its ranking would improve in all four areas of regulation that are the focus of this study, putting "Kenyana" in 78th place among the 183 economies measured in the global Doing Business report. That is 17 positions better than Kenya’s current global rank (represented by Nairobi).

Here is the full report, plus the press release and a Powerpoint presentation.