Subnational conflict is the most widespread, enduring, and deadly form of conflict in Asia. Over the past 20 years (1992-2012), there have been 26 subnational conflicts in South and Southeast Asia, affecting half of the countries in this region. Concerned about foreign interference, national governments limit external access to conflict areas by journalists, diplomats, and personnel from international development agencies and non-governmental organizations. As a result, many subnational conflict areas are poorly understood by outsiders and easily overshadowed by larger geopolitical issues, bilateral relations, and national development challenges. The interactions between conflict, politics, and aid in subnational conflict areas are a critical blind spot for aid programs. This study was conducted to help improve how development agencies address subnational conflicts.

Fourteenth in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2017 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity: • Starting a business • Dealing with construction permits • Getting electricity • Registering property • Getting credit • Protecting minority investors • Paying taxes • Trading across borders • Enforcing contracts • Resolving insolvency These areas are included in the distance to frontier score and ease of doing business ranking. Doing Business also measures features of labor market regulation, which is not included in these two measures. This year’s report introduces major improvements by expanding the paying taxes indicators to cover postfiling processes—tax audits, tax refunds and tax appeals—and presents analysis of pilot data on selling to the government which measures public procurement regulations. Also for the first time this year Doing Business collects data on Somalia, bringing the total number of economies covered to 190. Using the data originally developed by Women, Business and the Law, this year for the first time Doing Business adds a gender component to three indicators—starting a business, registering property, and enforcing contracts—and finds that those economies which limit women’s access in these areas have fewer women working in the private sector both as employers and employees. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2016, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business†?, and analyzes reforms to business regulation †“ identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. Doing Business illustrates how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. It is a flagship product produced in partnership by the World Bank Group that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 137 economies have used the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 2,182 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.

This book investigates long-term development issues for members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It finds that with the proper policy mix—including domestic structural reforms and bold initiatives for regional integration—ASEAN has the potential to reach by 2030 the average quality of life enjoyed today in advanced economies and to fulfill its aspirations to become a resilient, inclusive, competitive, and harmonious (RICH) region. Key challenges moving forward are to enhance macroeconomic and financial stability, support equitable growth, promote competitiveness and innovation, and protect the environment. Overcoming these challenges to build a truly borderless economic region implies eliminating remaining barriers to the flow of goods, services, and production factors; strengthening competitiveness and the institutional framework; and updating some governing principles. But ASEAN should not merely copy the European Union. It must maintain its flexibility and pragmatism without creating a bloated regional bureaucracy. The study’s main message is that through closer integration, ASEAN can form a partnership for achieving shared prosperity in the region and around the globe.