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Ease of Doing Business: Improvement in Nigeria’s rating not reflection of economic performance – World Bank


The World Bank has cleared the air on the significant improvement in the latest Ease of Doing Business (EODB) ranking of Nigeria and 19 other countries rated as the Top 20 improvers in EODB globally.

In an explanation posted on https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/reforms/top-20-reformers-in-db2020, the World Bank said the list did “not reflect the best performing/ranked economies, which will be disclosed at the time of Doing Business 2020 launch on October 24, 2019 at 9am EST.”

Following a report released by the World Bank where Nigeria was rated among the Top 20 economies in the world recognised as having made significant efforts to make business transactions in their countries better, a number of Nigerians, citing the unprecedented extreme poverty in the country, had wondered why the World Bank would give Nigeria such an impressive rating.


The World Bank explained that the Top 20 countries listed, including Nigeria, were those that improved the most on ease of doing business score.

The global bank explained that “economies are selected based on the number of reforms and on how much their ease of doing business score improved.”

Said the World Bank, “First, Doing Business selects the economies that implemented reforms making it easier to do business in three or more of the 10 areas included in this year’s aggregate ease of doing business score. Regulatory changes making it more difficult to do business are subtracted from the number of those making it easier. Second, Doing Business sorts these economies on the increase in their ease of doing business score due to reforms from the previous year (the impact due to changes in income per capita and the lending rate is excluded). The improvement in their score is calculated not by using the data published in 2018 but by using comparable data that capture data revisions and methodology changes when applicable. The choice of the most improved economies is determined by the largest improvements in the ease of doing business score among those with at least three reforms.

Apart from Nigeria, other countries which had the distinguished honour of being listed among the Top 20 improvers were Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Djibouti, India, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, The Kyrgyz Republic, Myanmar, Pakistan, Qatar, saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Togo, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe.

Giving the justification for including Nigeria on the list, the World Bank said the country “made starting a business easier by operationalizing a new electronic platform that integrates the tax authority and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). The CAC also upgraded its name reservation platform and, in Kano, there is now an electronic platform for registering business premises online, eliminating the need to appear in person. In Lagos, land administration was made more transparent following the digitization of cadastral plans in a geographic information system; digital copies of cadastral plans are now easily obtainable.

“Nigeria also made getting electricity easier by allowing certified engineers to conduct inspections for new connections. Initiatives also made commercial litigation of smaller cases more efficient. The Chief Judges in Lagos and Kano issued practice directions for small claims courts introducing pre-trial conferences and limit adjournments. Finally, customs integrated more agencies into its electronic data interchange system, and port authorities launched an e-payment system, speeding up both exports and imports.”