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This issue includes the following headings: infrastructure - A new direction for New Zealand schools, Primary schools, primary importance, Sustainable school buildings, and PPPs build the future; services - A charter for change, vouching for the future, Low fees, high hopes, Private schools for the poor, and Governments and business schools; innovation - Education for the 21st century, Access for all, Bricks and clicks, Open education goes the distance, Grading teachers, M is for mobile, Online learning; and interviews - Michelle Rhee, Emily Lawson, and Arne Duncan.

Air and sea transport power the global economy. Since the vast majority of trade is physical, it must travel by plane or ship to reach its market. In fact, high value, time-sensitive goods usually fly through at least two airports, and almost every container passes through at least two seaports. When ports are efficient, people receive the goods theyre waiting for, sellers receive payment, and global economic development is strengthened. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) push this development forward with greater speed and richer benefits. In this issue, handshake turns its attention to air and sea transport (expect a companion issue on road and rail in October 2012). In the air, we deconstruct myths surrounding airport PPPs, learn brutally honest lessons from experiences in airline privatization, and revisit the liberalization of African skies. For seaports, the authors examine private investment, glimpse the post concession era, and witness the PPP evolution.

Arab countries face a number of food security risks due to their high dependence on wheat imports. This study explores ways in which countries can mitigate these risks. The authors evaluate the wheat import supply chain (WISC) from the unloading port to bulk storage at the flour mill, before the wheat is milled into flour. Existing literature treats isolated topics related to the supply chain, such as strategic storage and the use of financial instruments. This study is unique in that it takes a holistic view of the supply chain by examining how strategic storage, logistics improvements, and procurement strategies can all be used to improve food security. This study considers three critical aspects to the WISC and proposes several strategies Arab countries may consider to mitigate import risks: strategic storage (chapter two): maintain strategic wheat reserves to weather times of crisis and food supply disruptions and to contribute to domestic and international price stabilization effects. Logistics (chapter three): promote investments throughout the supply chain that create smooth logistics, improve security, provide a reliable supply of wheat, reduce the base cost of importing wheat, and reduce product losses. Procurement (chapter four): develop a procurement strategy that leverages strategic partnerships while maintaining a diversified portfolio of suppliers and mitigates import risks through the use of hedging strategies. Currently, overall storage capacity in the region averages the equivalent of six months of consumption, and estimated ending stocks average four and one-half months. However, many Arab countries are planning to increase their strategic wheat reserves as a policy to improve food security. This can provide them with critical lead time to secure alternative wheat supplies or supply routes during times of crisis. Reserves also offer psychological benefits that may prevent hoarding and pilferage.

Between 2000 and 2005 infrastructure made a modest net contribution of less than one percentage point to the improved per capita growth performance of the Central African Republic (CAR), despite high expenses in the road sector. Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries could boost annual growth by about 3.5 percentage points. Assuming that the inefficiencies are fully captured, comparing spending needs against existing spending and potential efficiency gains leaves an annual funding gap of $183 million per year. By far the largest gap exists in transport. The CAR has the potential to close this gap by raising additional public funding for infrastructure from increased fiscal receipts of various kinds. Furthermore, the CAR has not captured as much private finance for infrastructure (measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP) as many of its neighbors. This scope for improvement, coupled with the prospect of an economic rebound and prudent policies, could lift the country from it fragile state back to and beyond the prosperity standards it once enjoyed.

Infrastructure contributed 1.3 percentage points to Burkina Faso's annual per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past decade, much of it due to improvements in information and communication technology (ICT). Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries (MICs) could boost annual growth by more than 3 percentage points per capita.Today, Burkina Faso's infrastructure indicators look relatively good when compared with other low-income countries (LICs) in Africa. Burkina Faso has made significant progress in developing its infrastructure in recent years. The rapid modernization of the ICT sector, around 60 percent of the population lives within range of a global system for mobile communications (GSM) cell-phone signal. The expansion of safe water and sanitation technologies in urban areas since the late 1990s and the establishment of a system for funding road maintenance (by reducing the cost of road travel) should pay long-term dividends to the economy. The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has gathered and analyzed extensive data on infrastructure across almost all African countries, including Burkina Faso. The results have been presented in reports covering different areas of infrastructure including ICT, irrigation, power, transport and water and sanitation and various policy areas, including investment needs, fiscal costs, and sector performance.