"This book, designed for policymakers, academics and researchers, and SEZ program practitioners, provides the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of SEZ programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is the result of detailed surveys and case studies conducted during 2009 in ten developing countries, including six in Sub-Saharan Africa. The book provides quantitative evidence of the performance of SEZs, and of the factors which contribute to that performance, highlighting the critical importance not just of the SEZ itself but of the wider national investment climate in which it functions. It also provides a comprehensive guide to the key policy questions that confront governments establishing SEZ programs, including: if and when to launch an SEZ program, what form of SEZ is most appropriate, and how to go about implementing it. Among the most important findings from the study that is stressed in the book is the shift from traditional enclave models of zones to SEZs that are integrated ? with national trade and industrial strategies, with core trade and social infrastructure, with domestic suppliers, and with local labor markets.Although the book focuses primarily on the experience of Sub-Saharan Africa, its lessons will be applicable to developing countries around the world."

Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines need to bolster cooperation in their special economic zones (SEZ) to spur sustainable growth. This publication maps out and assesses the economic performance of SEZs across the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area. It highlights challenges they face including growing competition for foreign investment, international trade disputes, and digital transformation. The publication emphasizes the need for policy makers and stakeholders to intensify strategic collaboration to make their SEZs more competitive. Against the backdrop of COVID-19, it outlines practical steps to increase the role of SEZs in boosting trade, creating jobs, and building economic resilience across the four countries.

This book examines SEZs from a political economy perspective, both to dissect the incentives of governments, zone developers, and exporters, and to uncover both the hidden costs and untapped potential of zone policies. Costs include misallocated resources, the encouragement of rent-seeking, and distraction of policy-makers from more effective reforms. However, the zones also have several unappreciated benefits. They can change the politics of a country, by generating a transition from a system of rent-seeking to one of liberalized open markets. In revealing the hidden promise of SEZs, this book shows how the SEZ model of development can succeed in the future.

For countries as diverse as China and Mauritius, Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have been a powerful tool to attract foreign investment, promote export-oriented growth, and generate employment; for many others, the results have been less than encouraging. While the benefits and limitations of zones will no doubt continue to be debated, what is clear is that policymakers are increasingly attracted to them as an instrument of trade, investment, industrial, and spatial policy. Since the mid 1980s, the number of newly-established zones has grown rapidly in almost all regions, with dramatic growth in developing countries. In parallel with this growth and in the evolving context of global trade and investment, zones are also undergoing significant change in both their form and function, with traditional export processing zones (EPZs) increasingly giving way to larger and more flexible SEZ models. This new context will bring significant opportunities for developing countries to take advantage of SEZs, but will also raise new challenges to their successful design and implementation. This volume aims to contribute to a better understanding of the role and practice of SEZs in developing countries, in order to better equip policymakers in making effective decisions in planning and implementing SEZ programs. It covers some of the emerging issues and challenges in SEZs including upgrading, regional integration, WTO compliance, innovation, the environment, and gender issues with practical case examples from SEZ programs in developing countries.

This report focuses on special economic zones (SEZs) which are widely used across most developing and many developed economies. It explores the place of SEZs in today's global investment landscape and provides guidance for policymakers on how to make SEZs work for sustainable development. It presents international investment trends and prospects at global, regional and national levels, as well as the evolution of international production and global value chains. It analyses the latest developments in new policy measures for investment promotion, facilitation and regulation around the world.

"This Policy Research Report was prepared by the Development Economics Research Group of the World Bank by a team led by Dean Jolliffe and Peter Lanjouw"--Page xiii.

"The 2012 report recognized that expanding women's agency - their ability to make decisions and take advantage of opportunities is key to improving their lives as well as the world. This report represents a major advance in global knowledge on this critical front. The vast data and thousands of surveys distilled in this report cast important light on the nature of constraints women and girls continue to face globally. This report identifies promising opportunities and entry points for lasting transformation, such as interventions that reach across sectors and include life-skills training, sexual and reproductive health education, conditional cash transfers, and mentoring. It finds that addressing what the World Health Organization has identified as an epidemic of violence against women means sharply scaling up engagement with men and boys. The report also underlines the vital role information and communication technologies can play in amplifying women's voices, expanding their economic and learning opportunities, and broadening their views and aspirations. The World Bank Group's twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity demand no less than the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys, around the world." -- Publisher's description.

Growth‐enhancing structural change—a relocation of labour from low‐ to high‐productivity sectors—is increasingly perceived as inextricably linked with the sustainable development agenda. In the pursuit of structural change, policymakers have pinned their hopes on targeted policy tools such as special economic zones (SEZs). These geographically demarcated spaces designed to attract investment with a wide set of advantages have become de rigueur; however, a systematic evaluation of evidence‐informed policymaking is scarce due to conceptual and practical challenges. This book fills that gap and shows that SEZs are no ‘shortcut’ to economic development; their success in driving economic transformation depends on the complex interplay of sociopolitical, economic and strategic factors. This book contributes to the burgeoning literature on SEZs by providing the first systematic evaluation of the SEZ policy. It adopts the ‘policy cycle approach’ to organise policy evaluation into three hierarchical layers: input evaluation (agenda building), output evaluation (policy designs) and outcome evaluation (immediate effects of SEZs on firms’ behaviour and performance) with special reference to South Asian countries. The strategy is to bring together the findings of microeconomic evaluations to draw macro inferences on the contribution of SEZs to the broader objectives of structural transformation and competitiveness. Part I of the book delves into development challenges facing the region, lays out theoretical foundations underlying the relevance of SEZs in addressing them and examines the relevance of SEZs in the context of South Asia. Part II evaluates the policy first at systemic level to gauge whether and how the policy is rooted in broader development goals and then at the design level to examine the fit between the policy goals and designs. Part III presents a counterfactual evaluation of the impact of SEZs on investment climate; export competitiveness of firms; technology and innovation; and knowledge linkages of SEZ firms with the wider economy. The final chapter concludes by discussing the emerging challenges and the way forward. This will be a useful reference for academics, researchers, policymakers and professionals in international trade and business, public policy, industrial economics and regional integration.

BRICS countries, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (known as bloc), have been working closely together for more than a decade in areas as politics, economics, culture and security. The bloc plays a crucial role in facilitating the growth of not only emerging markets and developing countries, but also the world economy as a whole. Just as importantly, it contributes significantly towards improving global governance and the welfare of those living in BRICS countries. Contributed by more than 20 experts from major think tanks in BRICS countries, the chapters in this book analyze how the BRICS countries have realized shared prosperity and achieved global prominence by cooperating with one another. In addition, the authors also look at challenges faced by the bloc, and possible solutions to those problems.

As Asia grows and prospers, its economies are increasingly vital to each other -and to the world. Led by a team of ADB staff, scholars, and advisers to regional policy makers, this study highlights what is at stake the emerging Asian regionalism and lays out the ground for further discussion on how to move forward.