The World Bank and the Street: (How) Do ‘Doing Business’ Reforms Affect Tanzania’s Micro-traders?

The well-documented weaknesses of structural adjustment policies have led to a reconceptualisation of the World Bank’s approach to neo-liberal reforms. The ‘Doing Business’ reforms aim to foster a better climate for business in a number of ways. The main policy documents reject interventions targeted at specific groups but, although they identify informal small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as likely to benefit disproportionately, they specifically exclude micro-enterprises as a target group. The general argument of this paper is that reforms may well impact non-target groups through interactions with several areas of policy and law, with public attitudes and with multiple economic sectors. In particular, it is argued that the exclusion of micro-traders from the reforms contributes to their marginalisation in political and policy arenas, increasing their vulnerability to state intervention. The paper draws on a four-month study conducted by the authors in Tanzania in 2007.