Arab Business Environment Legislative Framework

Within the framework of ESCWA’s Development Account (DA) project “Towards the Arab Horizon 2030: Enhancing Integrated National Development Planning in the Arab Region”, ESCWA will organize an online regional meeting on “Arab Business Environment Legislative Framework”. The increasing interest in legal and institutional reform, business facilitation, and better governance in the Arab region has prompted governments, donors and development agencies to focus on improving the regulatory framework for business environment and ensuring a fair balance between the rights and interests of different parties. However, legal reform is not limited to producing legislations only, but ensuring that these legislations are well understood, applied and integrated within the general framework and national plans of each Arab country.
In that vein, ESCWA has worked to complete a research trajectory with member states to assess regional and national legislation, laws and agreements related to the business and economic environment, under the main topics of competition, anti-corruption, consumer protection and foreign direct investment. The study aims to understand and define the current regulatory framework for business environment in the Arab region as part of a larger goal to support ESCWA member countries in their national planning processes.
 
This meeting will focus on discussing the results of the research and assessment completed by ESCWA and the analysis of the national legislations in each member country and identifying the main challenges and recommendations.
 
The opening session of the meeting will present the objectives of the meeting and the project, as well as an overview of the research and analysis process and methodology. During the second session, participants will be presented with the results of the legislations analysis related to the business environment in the Arab region. During the third and last session, comments, recommendations and future steps will be agreed upon.