Rwanda Leads Sub-Saharan Africa in Global Business Efficiency Rankings as Regional Peers Face Significant Service Gaps
KIGALI – Rwanda has emerged as a standout performer in Sub-Saharan Africa, securing a spot among global leaders for operational efficiency in the World Bank’s newly released Business Ready 2025 report.
While the report warns that many economies with young populations are failing to create the environments necessary for job growth, Rwanda’s success provides a potential roadmap for its East African neighbors.
Rwanda Leads the Region in “Operational Efficiency”
The sources reveal that Rwanda is the only economy in Sub-Saharan Africa to achieve a top-quintile ranking in the “Operational Efficiency” pillar, placing it alongside high-income hubs like Singapore and Bahrain. With an operational efficiency score of 71.47, Rwanda demonstrates a significant ability to make regulatory compliance and public service usage easy for firms.
Key areas of strength for Rwanda include:
- Business Entry: Scoring a high 86.70, reflecting streamlined processes for starting new enterprises.
- Business Insolvency: At 74.76, Rwanda leads many peers in the efficiency of closing or reorganizing businesses.
- Dispute Resolution: Scoring 69.49, indicating a relatively stable legal environment for commerce.
A Divided East African Landscape
The report paints a varied picture of business readiness across the rest of the region. While Tanzania shows moderate performance, scoring 61.92 in its Regulatory Framework and 57.87 in Public Services, other neighbors face steep uphill climbs.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) maintains a respectable Regulatory Framework score of 63.61, but it struggles significantly with Public Services, scoring just 26.56. Meanwhile, South Sudan ranks at the bottom of the global sample across all three pillars, with a Public Services score of only 15.51 and an overall Regulatory Framework score of 36.04.
The “Young Workforce” Challenge
A central theme of the Business Ready 2025 report is the “vulnerability” of economies with young workforces and low growth—a category that includes much of Sub-Saharan Africa. The sources emphasize that 1.2 billion young people are expected to enter the global labor market in the next decade, yet the economies that need jobs the most are often the “least business ready”.
The report categorizes these economies into a Workforce-Growth Matrix, noting that for young-workforce, low-growth economies, overhauling the business environment is “critical to facilitate more and better jobs”. Rwanda’s ability to maintain high scores despite these demographic pressures suggests that targeted reforms can buck the global trend of low readiness in young nations.
The “Public Services Gap”
Across all regions, but most acutely in young-workforce economies, the sources identify a persistent “public services gap”. This occurs when governments are better at writing rules (Pillar I) than providing the services, like digital tax platforms or utility connections, needed to follow them (Pillar II).
In young-workforce economies, this gap is nearly three times larger than in mature ones. While Rwanda has made strides in bridging this divide, the region as a whole remains exposed to the risks of a challenging business environment that can stifle the “engine of growth”.
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
