Working in collaboration with the public and private sectors, the Business Enabling Environment component of the USAID-Tijara program helps to advance Iraq's economy and increase employment generation prospects.

Iraq has a varied and inconsistent regulatory framework for businesses and investors. Regulatory reform is required to create an improved business enabling environment in Iraq to help proliferate micro, small and medium-sized businesses. To stimulate that reform process, USAID-Tijara established its Business Enabling Environment component in February 2010.

Currently, businesses and investors face challenges in finding transparent legal guidelines and in avoiding discretionary use of official power. This lack of a consistent legal framework is further compounded by bloated administrative burdens which ultimately discourage people from registering formal business organizations and investing in Iraq.

Consequently, Iraq has fared poorly in the World Bank's annual comparative "Doing Business" survey which bases each country's business and investment climate on the same ten indicators. Of 183 countries surveyed in the period June 2008 to May 2009, Iraq ranked 153.

The Business Enabling Environment component works with both private sector stakeholders and government counterparts to identify and remedy flaws in Iraq's business and investment policies, laws, regulations and administrative procedures. It assists governmental agencies at both national and provincial levels to achieve streamlined administrative procedures and regulatory reforms while generating the momentum for more complex policy and legislative transformations in the near future.