You need government's permission to sell land
Ida is a Gambian entrepreneur who wants to sell her land to expand her manufacturing business. She has an interested buyer, but transferring property in The Gambia requires ministerial consent and can take up to a year. The Gambia is one of the 12 countries in the world where government approval is required for such economic transactions. Others are Lesotho, Madagascar, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Senegal, Solomon Islands, Tanzania, Tonga, Uganda and Zambia.
Simplifying procedures to register property encourages investment and gives entrepreneurs, like Ida, better access to credit to grow businesses and create jobs.
Twenty-four countries made it easier to register property this past year, according to Doing Business 2009, the joint World Bank- IFC publication, which tracks ten stages in the lifecycle of a business, ranks countries on their regulatory ease of doing business, and identifies the fastest reformers.
Registering property is one of the 239 reforms the report tracked in 113 countries between June 2007 and June 2008.