ALL states in Nigeria have always touted their commitment to attract investors, both local and foreign. The governors and key states officials have had cause to embark on countless foreign tours for this purpose.

But their efforts in this regard have been as fruitless as the search for the Holy Grail and as hopeless as the barren vineyard of Prophet Isaiah’s vision in which well tendered vineyard yielded only thorns and rotten fruits. In effect, the quest for investors has not produced any meaningful result.

One factor best explains this forlorn hope, to wit: The nature and quality of the nation’s business environment. Business environment is essential to economic growth, poverty reduction, sustainable development and attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) and Vision 20:2020.

Business environment indeed, entails providing enabling conditions for effective, efficient and profitable enterprise development and it is the primary responsibility of governments at all levels to provide this much needed environment. Indeed, the quality of business environment is directly linked to the quality of governance.

Perhaps, providing an enabling business environment was what Abraham Lincoln, a former United States President, had in mind when he stated that the essence of government is to do for the people, what they cannot individually do for themselves.

Providing a good business environment is a responsibility which only the government can meaningfully handle.

A good business environment entails well functioning and efficient public infrastructure, institutional systems and regulatory services. It helps to reduce the cost of doing business, difficulties encountered in operating a business and business mortality rate.

Bad business environment adversely affects everyone – individuals, businesses, communities and groups. It increases poverty and reduces the nation’s global economic competitiveness.

What constitutes Nigeria’s business environment is the sum total of business environment of the constituent parts of the federation. The very important question therefore is: How has each state government and geo-political zone, fared in providing enabling business environment? How business-friendly are they?

There are four benchmarks for assessing business environment, namely: Infrastructure and utilities such as power, roads, public transportation system, water and sanitation and social welfare; regulatory services such as property registration, tax administration, designation of industrial and enterprise zone, contract enforcement, justice sector delivery, business registration; business development support such as access to business finance, entrepreneurship promotion, support for industrial parks.

The fourth but not the least benchmark is security.

To what extent has each state and geo-political zone performed in the above spheres of business environment. These questions will be answered by the BECANS Report to be made public on September 23, 2010 at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.

The event will attract both public and private sector managers, policy makers, international communities, academics, civil society,  researches, professional groups among others.

It will be chaired by Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa who is the Chairman, Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and a member of Presidential Steering Committee on the economy.

BECANS, an acronym for business envornment and competitiveness across Nigerian states, is a flagship research of the African Institute for Applied Economics (AIAE) with erudite Prof. Eric Eboh as its chief executive. BECANS is unique in many respects. Until the AIAE came up with this research product, most investment climate assessments were carried out by offshore rating agencies.

Most investment climate assessments relied on aggregate indicators of the quality of the nation’s policy, regulatory and institutional environment. The assessments were cross-country comparisons based on universal set of measures.

It must be stated that while aggregate indicators of investment climate at the national level is useful, it does not tell the story or present the picture of differences in business environment across the states. BECANS has been initiated to fill this obvious gap.

It is an indigenous initiative and focuses on sub-national jurisdictions (state and local governments).

BECANS scoreboard to be unveiled tomorrow, September 23, 2010, will show state-by-state performance on the various spheres of business environment. It will reveal where respective states have performed well and where they have performed poorly.

It will indicate in what spheres of business environment individual state and ge-political zone has improved or declined since the first publication in 2007. It will reveal the opportunities and challenges for a more business- friendly environment.

Indeed, the overall goal of BECANS is to catalyze business environment reforms throughout Nigeria through supplying independent evidence-based research product on the business environment across states in Nigeria.

The benchmarking tools which BECANS provides,  enable government and stakeholders to identify specific obstacles hindering their business competitiveness and stimulate critical thinking on the ways and means of overcoming them.

It therefore provides a monitoring mechanism to improve public accountability of state governments regarding how their reforms are impacting on the business environment and public services in general.

It offers the state governments the framework for peer review and mutual learning to enable them engage in healthy competition for investment and business. . The BECANS publication will be a veritable guide to a brighter business environment.

Policy makers, private sector operators, civil society and researchers will derive immense benefit therefrom. All in all, the launch of BECANS publication is a very important event which all must look forward to.

By Ignatius Orisewezie , a lawyer and fellow of African Institute for Applied Economics, writes from Asaba, Delta State.