Starting a business is not easy in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It takes 13 procedures and 155 days-and it costs five times the annual income per capita. The situation is even worse for women: they need the consent of a husband. And if you are a single woman, a judge decides whether you can become a businesswoman.

The result: Only 18 percent of small businesses are run by women in the DRC. Next door, in Rwanda, which has no such regulations, women run more than 41 percent of small businesses.

But many countries are making it easier to do business. The Doing Business 2008 report identifies 200 reforms in 98 countries between April 2006 and June 2007.

The top reformer was Egypt. Unhappy with its Doing Business ranking last year, the Egyptian government pulled out all stops. Its efforts cut deep-with reforms in five of the 10 areas studied by the report. It made the single fastest climb in the overall rankings on the ease of doing business.

Georgia, the top reformer last year, remains in the top 10 and continues to target better rankings each year. Its efforts are paying off: Georgia is now in the top 25 countries in overall rankings for the ease of doing business. Two African countries-Ghana and Kenya-also made this year's list of the top 10 reformers.

"Overall, Doing Business has had a powerful catalytic effect," says Simeon Djankov, the lead author of the report. "For example, in the past two years, we have recorded 413 reforms in the countries we study. We have been able to confirm at least 113 instances where Doing Business inspired or informed business regulatory reforms worldwide."

The Financial Times has noted that in publishing Doing Business, the World Bank Group is "producing a public good: measurements of regulatory performance that may become as indispensable to reformers and academics as national income accounts."

From the World Bank - Continue here!