Making administrative procedures transparent, swift and efficient is essential to establish an enabling environment for private sector development and to strengthen good governance and the rule of law.

UNCTAD has conceived a web-based e-government system to help developing countries and countries in transition work towards business facilitation through transparency, simplification and automation of rules and procedures relating to enterprise creation and operation. This system can contribute to greater transparency and efficiency in the public service, improved governance and cost reductions.

The e-regulations system is implemented by UNCTAD in requesting countries. It is currently being installed in Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mali, Morocco, Nicaragua, Russian Federation (Moscow City), and Viet Nam.

The objective of the system is four-fold:

• Provide full transparency on rules and procedures by offering online detailed, practical and up-to-date descriptions of the steps they have to go through, seen from the user's viewpoint;
• Help governments to simplify procedures by allowing easy identification of unnecessary steps;
• Promote good governance by increasing the awareness of administrative rules and procedures, hence establishing the conditions for a balanced dialogue between the users of the public service and the civil servants;
• Set a basis for regional/international harmonization of rules by facilitating the exchange of good practices among countries.