Search

With reference to the urban redevelopment interventions carried out through the Public Private Partnership procedure, the present research aims at testing a model able to quickly evaluate the convenience of the parties involved (private investors and Public Administrations). The model has been applied to three urban transformation initiatives to be developed in the city of Bari (Southern Italy), in order to verify the financial feasibility of each investment. The experimentation on the three projects considered could allow i) the Public Administration to define a priority list of the three urban initiatives to be launched in the city of Bari, ii) the private investors to weigh the risk of the different alternatives, in order to identify the most appropriate investment.

Convenient access to safe water is central to human health and development. Water-borne disease remains a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the world, much of which could be eliminated by a combination of better water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH). The WHO estimates that around 502 000 deaths a year in low and middle income countries from diarrheal disease are attributable to unsafe water, and that over 1 000 children under 5 die each day from diarrheal disease caused by inadequate WASH. UNWomen estimates that in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, women and girls spend 40 billion hours a year collecting water, the time valued at around $20 billion a year. Sustainable development goal no. 6 ‘ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’ creates a framework for tackling the challenge of mobilizing the large investments required and making WaSH available at affordable prices. The purpose of the study on which this report is based is to analyze, capture and synthesize lessons learned from closed GPOBA water projects in order to evaluate the impact of the subsidy schemes and inform the scale-up and replication of OBA approaches. These lessons offer insight to successes and failures of project design and implementation as well as solutions to more complex projects and/or less tested environments.

This report, developed for policy makers and sector development partners, highlights the manner in which the domestic private sector is successfully participating in the delivery of water and sanitation services in Niger. It outlines the factors for success as well as the challenges that need to be addressed to harness private sector resources and motivation for improved and sustainable services.There is a need to further strengthen the capacities of various rural water supply stakeholders, particularly communes, which contract and supervise the work of the operators. The capacities of operators and users’ associations also need to be developed to pursue ensure the operational sustainability of the systems.The technical assistance (TA) described in this Note has, over the past five years, supported the sector’s stakeholders’ efforts to work in synergy to foster the participation of domestic private entities in the management of rural water supply systems (RWSSs).The purpose of the TA hasbeen to ensure improved operational policy applicationof the PPP frameworks in the context of water supplyand urban sanitation in rural and small towns , which hasnot evolved much over time in relation to urban waterservices. The TA program consisted of training activities,market assessments, and options development studiesto inform decision-making and consensus-building ofdifferent stakeholders on resolving some challenges facingthese subsectors.Opportunities exist for the Government to promote the emerging domestic private operators with a view to raising their level of professionalism for better service delivery.

With the exception of Myanmar, Cambodia has the lowest access to piped water supply in the South East Asia region, which was estimated to be 21 percent in 2015. Less than one in ten rural households (7 percent) have access to piped water services on their premises, while for urban households, three out of four households enjoy these services (75 percent) (WHO and UNICEF, 2015). Against this backdrop, the Government of Cambodia in its National Strategic Development Plan 2014-2018 (Royal Government of Cambodia, 2013) prioritizes the acceleration of access to piped water services, in partnership with the domestic private sector. Private water operators are licensed and regulated by the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft (MIH). Scarce public domestic financial resources are solely channeled to state-owned utilities and enforcement of regulations is generally weak. With the exception of the French Development Agency (AFD), most development partners focus their grant and lending support on public utility investments. In 2012 the private sector is already estimated to provide 1.4 million Cambodians with piped water services, with the immediate potential for expansion of existing schemes covering another 2 million and further new schemes that could viably be developed for another 3 million Cambodians (Sy, Warner, & Jamieson, 2014) and ( (DFAT, 2014). Around 300 private sector utilities, around half of which are licensed by the Ministry of Industry and Handicraft (MIH), have a market share of almost 50 percent of those with access to piped services, mostly situated in rural towns and agglomerations of settlements, with 750 to over 3000 household connections. Driven by demand for higher services, the private sector in Cambodia will be an important driver for increasing access to piped water supply, especially in the rapidly urbanizing rural growth centers of Cambodia.

In Romania, the liberalization of the railway system in 1998 is considered successful by many people, at least from the point of view of operators, not less than 50 transport licenses being released from 2000 until present, most of them until 2004. The national operator, CFR Marfă, is still a superior presence on the railway freight transport market as compared to the undertakings which have recently accessed the market, but loses ground year after year. If in 2003, the national operator CFR Marfă had a market quota which exceeded 90%, in 2009, the national operator holds a market quota seriously approaching 50%.

Reliable evidence on the quality of current WSS service conditions is scarce and consumer experience and views and voices are not systematically collected and used for policy development. International experience suggests that poor drinking water and sanitation services can cause households to incur high costs for dealing with this situation. However, in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries, there is a lack of data on service quality and on such coping costs. Together with limited feedback from consumers to those that design WSS policies and programs this makes it difficult to design effective reform measures and assess their ex-ante impact on households, in particular for those at the bottom of the income distribution. This study assesses consumer experiences with current WSS services across a range of selected sites in Uzbekistan and determines consumer readiness for reform. First of all, the study analyses how surveyed consumers currently meet their drinking water and sanitation needs and what proportion of their household budget is spent on meeting their WSS needs. Second it assesses the interaction between consumers and service providers. Third it examines stakeholder views and positions on service modernization needs and assesses consumer willingness to pay for quality networked WSS services. Comparisons are made across consumers in a selection of cities, small towns and rural areas, between consumers that are connected to a networked service and those that are not, and between households in the bottom 40 percent and top 60 percent of the income distribution (as estimated through a wealth index).

This note explores the Bangladesh experience in implementing the widespread use of a private operator model for building and operating rural piped water schemes. Since the early 1990s, the World Bank has, through a series of development projects, designed, piloted, and attempted to scale up use of the model as a mechanisms to address the very real issues of arsenic contamination and delivery at scale. The latest of these projects is still in implementation. The experience with these projects to date has been disappointing, and while a limited number of schemes are still in operation, the model has not been replicated in a large number of communities as intended and has not proved to be particularly sustainable. Over this same period, the government and other development partners also have been using alternative methods to deliver the same kinds of services in rural areas. Some of these efforts seem to have been modestly successful. However, much of the evidence about the performance of these other models is anecdotal and there has been little rigorous analysis to compare the performance of these different models with the private sponsor approach. This paper attempts to do this on the basis of a desk review of existing World Bank literature, including project documents and research reports, coupled with interviews with key stakeholders and World Bank staff. The first section of the paper provides an overview of the rationale and key issues associated with efforts to scale up a private operator model in Bangladesh. The second section reviews government efforts and those of its other development partners, to use a more traditional mode of service provision, involving community management. The third, fourth, and fifth sections review efforts by the government and the World Bank to design, test, and scale up a private operator model for service provision. A sixth section reviews some of the international research that provides insights into the use of such models in other countries and sectors. The paper ends with tentative conclusions about the experience in Bangladesh, lessons learned, and several options for further analysis.

Since the introduction of the Water Law in 2004, national river basin management in Indonesia has been carried out by 30 public river basin management organizations (RBOs), called either Balai Besar Wilayah Sungai(s) (BBWSs) or Balai Wilayah Sungai(s) (BWSs); the two are referenced together here as B(B)WSs. These national government agencies fill both regulatory and management functions, as well as undertaking construction, operation, and maintenance of river infrastructure and irrigation systems larger than 3,000 hectares. Provincial water agencies also provide water resource and river basin management in provincial basins and basins of national river territories, in coordination with the national river basin agencies.

This paper is organized into three main sections. Section one presents the background, objectives, scope, and limitations of the study. It also provides a general definition of OM and presents prototypical OM arrangements for rural CDD and community-based subprojects. Section two presents the detailed case studies for the seven selected projects. Section three summarizes the conclusions from the review and recommends steps for moving ahead. Five annexes provide extra background information, including the complete list of projects from which the seven main case studies were selected, as well as: examples of maintenance requirements for rural infrastructure; considerations for task teams planning for OM design and implementation; sample OM measures and timelines; and links to OM materials.

Successful mid-sized cities will be vital to India’s growth and prosperity in the coming decades. Indian cities are home to over 375 million people now, and their population is likely to double by 2035. Yet water supply in most mid-sized cities falls short of Government of India benchmarks for service, efficiency and cost recovery. In many of them water flows in the pipes for 2 hours a day or less, its quality is poor, and it is provided by utilities that cannot even cover their operating costs. Following a brief introduction to the three city case studies (section two), the report lays out the Indian water sector’s unique challenges, and using case examples to substantiate findings (section three). The challenges include day-to-day operational issues associated with running a utility, as well as policy and planning issues that affect the utility’s governance and investment planning to meet current and future demand. The results of a financial viability gap analysis, applied to Bhubaneswar and Coimbatore reveal the magnitude of improvements required, and the key drivers that affect the utilities’ financial performance (section four). These complex challenges make traditional PPP models, Management Contracts, Concessions and Leases, less amenable for use in mid-size Indian cities. As section five describes, this is because the traditional models are too risky for the operator or government or too limited in scope to create lasting improvements. The remaining sections focus on explaining the design and procurement strategy for the two innovative PPP models, the phased performance based contract and the Joint Venture (JV) Partnership (section six and seven). These models have the potential to deliver better results than the traditional PPPs and business as usual scenarios. This is because in addition to reforming dysfunctional utilities into focused and accountable organizations, they are able to respond to information uncertainty, include strong incentives, have clear sources of funding, and promote capital efficiency.

Professionalization contracts are a new concept. The aim of these contracts is to enlist the support of specialized private firms in turning public water utilities into competent professional operators. This report looks at how the business model for such contracts may work. This report builds on fieldwork and consultation in India. The model described in this report reflects two weeks of meetings with water sector stakeholder in India, including a workshop held at the World Bank country office in Delhi on 22 March 2011. The report gives introduction in section one. It describes briefly the need for professionalization contracts in India, and the target market section two. It then summarizes what the contractor will do, and how this differs from traditional capacity building, as well as from traditional public private partnership (PPP) concepts such as management contracts section three. The report then describes the complementary policy and institutional reforms that will be needed at the state and local government levels to make professionalization contracts successful section four. Section five looks at the political economy of professionalization contracts, identifying risks, and how these risks can be mitigated through design of the institutional reforms and the business model. Section six then turns to the true business model aspects by describing indicative costs of the professionalization contract and the complementary investments required. Section seven considers what the sources of funding for these costs would be, and section eight goes on to explain how the contractor will be paid, and hence the incentives under which it will operate. Section nine looks at the market of potential contractors, and examines their incentives to participate. Finally, section ten sets out some considerations for developing the concept.

This report analyzes the progress and challenges of 16 countries in the Danube watershed in delivering sustainable water and wastewater services to all, while meeting the European Union environmental acquis communautaire. After putting the services that are being delivered into context, the report analyzes the organization of services in the region and the level of access to services, that is, how well countries are doing in terms of providing access to water and wastewater services for the entire population. It then looks at the performance of the sector, including the quality of services provided and customer satisfaction with it. It also draws a picture of the efficiency of services, including whether they reflect accepted good practices. Finally, it analyzes the financing of services, looking at whether the financing of operation, maintenance, and investments is secured and affordable. The report draws largely from existing public data sources at the national and regional level, and consolidates them into a coherent, regional narrative, and analysis. The methods of analysis include horizontal comparisons among countries at a given point in time and trends within the countries or the region over a given period of time. Given shortcomings in the availability and comparability of data across 16 countries, the report seeks to encourage and inform a policy dialogue around sector challenges rather than provide a definitive set of policy recommendations.

To evaluate and reflect the sustainability of services in the region, an overall sector sustainability assessment was done, taking into account four main dimensions: access to services, quality of services, efficiency of services, and financing of services. Each of these dimensions is measured through three simple and objective indicators. For each indicator, best practice values are established by looking at the best performers in the region, and countries closest to those best performers are deemed to have a more mature sector. A more complete description of the methodology to assess sector sustainability is included in the Annex of the State of the Sector Regional Report from the Danube Water Program. The outcomes of this assessment for Hungary’s water sector are displayed, which also shows average and best practices in the Danube region. The Hungarian sector sustainability score is 74, which is far above the Danube average sustainability of 64, and is among the best practices in the region. The assessment shows that, on average, the country performs well in terms of continuity of access to piped water and flush toilet, collection ratio, nonrevenue water and staffing level. The main deficiencies of Hungary’s water sector identified through the sector sustainability assessment are the operating cost ratio, affordability, and investments. The main sector challenges are: achieving full cost recovery; preventing the degradation of assets in the long term; and preparing for the risks caused by climate change.

To evaluate and reflect the sustainability of services in the region, an overall sector sustainability assessment was done, taking into account four main dimensions: access to services, quality of services, efficiency of services, and financing of services. Each of these dimensions is measured through three simple and objective indicators. For each indicator, best practice values are established by looking at the best performers in the region, and countries closest to those best performers are deemed to have a more mature sector. A more complete description of the methodology to assess the sector sustainability is included in the annex of the state of the sector regional report from the Danube Water Program. The outcomes of this assessment for the Slovenia water sector are displayed, which also shows average and best practices in the Danube region. The Slovenian sector sustainability score is 84, which is above the Danube average sustainability score of 64. The assessment shows that, on average, the country performs well in terms of access to piped water and flush toilets, affordability, continuity of service, customer satisfaction, nonrevenue water, and collection ratio. The main deficiencies of Slovenia’s water sector identified through the sector sustainability assessment are wastewater treatment coverage, operating cost ratio, and investment level. The main sector challenges are: increasing the rehabilitation of the water infrastructure and improving its reliability; and improving monitoring and reporting practices.

The overview over the next pages summarizes key themes and findings from on-going technical assistance provided to the Kenyan water sector by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) of the World Bank’s Water Global Practice. Kenya’s new Constitution (Constitution of Kenya 2010) came into effect in 2013, declaring water supply and sanitation services a basic right and devolving key water and sanitation functions to the county level. Key legislation, including the County Government Act of 2012 and the Urban Areas and Cities Act of 2011, have provided the framework for far reaching changes. As these changes took shape before and after the new constitution came into effect, WSP’s TA programs have been providing specific advice at the national level1 to align the sector’s legal and institutional frameworks to the new decentralized constitution. The engagement and support to counties to adopt the new frameworks has been stepped up substantially since mid-2013. This is evidenced by the progress of the transition process under the Transition Authority and Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution. This note seeks to briefly highlight priorities and practical suggestions to pursue those priorities in order to support counties as they navigate the process of devolution.

This study explores the potential of prepaid meters for serving urban poor communities. It provides urban utilities, oversight agencies, and other stakeholders in Africa with a basis for decision-making on the suitability, introduction, and management of such meters. The need for the assessment emerged from prepaid meters increasingly being utilized by water and sanitation utilities in developing countries, including World Bank clients. The technologies adopted have expanded over this period, but there has been a lack of consolidated data and analysis that capture the service delivery, operational efficiency, and access to services aspects of such systems across utilities and regions systematically. The review initially aimed to research experiences in six African countries from the perspective of their communities, as well as from water sector bodies, governments, and other investors. The number of case studies was increased to eight with the addition of Windhoek in Namibia and Nakuru in Kenya, as it became apparent that they may offer additional lessons. Windhoek, for example, is one of the prepaid water pioneers in Africa. The study specifically canvased the perspectives of customers, including market research and opinion surveys on people s experience and views of prepaid water in practice. Women and children were well represented in many of these groups. The analysis aimed to be robustly investigative, deliberately not advocating for prepaid systems in principle, or making firm recommendations, but rather offering balanced analysis and assessment, and considerations to inform policymakers and sector leaders, as well as other stakeholders who may face decisions or challenges on such systems. One of the key conceptual bases that the analysis identified was the need to differentiate between prepaid applications of prepaid system for standpipes, individual connections, and institutional and commercial customers each of which have different implications for their users, as well as for cost effectiveness. Utilities must be able to justify the investment in a prepayment system and its opportunity costs specific to the application they choose, and relative to alternative means of improving services.

Many empirical studies have demonstrated the close relationship between a country’s economic development and its stock of infrastructure. Decades of deferred maintenance and lack of long-term financing have taken a heavy toll on Zimbabwe’s infrastructure that at one time was ranked at the top in Africa. Only the information and communications technologies (ICT) sector has been performing relatively well but its high tariffs add to the cost of doing business in Zimbabwe. The strategy in the infrastructure sectors is to encourage public private partnerships (PPPs) for the financing and execution of the different sub-projects. This strategy has been emerging in the electric power, road transport, and ICT sectors and is now being extended to water supply and sanitation. This review builds on the findings from an October-November 2013 mission that, upon the request of the Ministry of Finance, assessed the ministerial submissions for the 2014 public sector investment program (PSIP). The review concludes that the perception of the predictable policies is key for attracting responsible private partners for sustainable PPPs. The review recommends less risky options such as: (i) outsourcing operations of existing plants; (ii) lease contracts of existing plants; and (iii) sales of existing thermal plants. The review notes that the analytical multi donor trust fund (AMDTF) is programmed to close on June 30, 2014. It is of the essence to explore the possibilities to locate concessionary funding for a successor to the AMDTF given the high priority of additional studies in the power, water, and ICT sectors to prepare for the reforms suggested.

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.

In most large cities in developing countries, buses continue to be the public transport option of choice, carrying a large share of urban travelers. However, transit bus companies in these countries are often cash-strapped. In many cases, the operating cost per bus kilometer exceeds revenues and bus fares are often kept low irrespective of the cost of providing service. Many cities are dominated by old and fuel-intensive buses with high operating costs. Transit systems are also often plagued by overcrowded and undependable service, congested roadways and chaotic operating environments. Across the board, city officials in developing countries are under strong pressure to improve the efficiency and enhance the attractiveness of bus transportation. Fuel makes up a relatively large fraction of total bus operating costs, especially when labor costs are low, as in many developing countries. Fuel costs can be reduced by improving the driving style of bus drivers and through sound maintenance practices. A safe and economical driving style can reduce variable costs, decrease down time due to repair work and maintenance, mitigate negative environmental impacts and improve road safety. This guidance note1 provides detailed and practical recommendations on how city bus operations managers and their technical staff can plan and implement such enhancements to their fleets through Operations and Maintenance (O and M) practices without significant capital investments. By implementing such recommendations, municipal officials and bus operators can increase the efficiency and fuel economy of their bus systems and reduce their cities' energy consumption, congestion and pollution. This guidance note provides detailed and practical recommendations on how city bus operations managers and their technical staff can plan and implement such enhancements to their fleets through O and M practices without significant capital investments.

This study is a product of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), a project designed to expand the world's knowledge of physical infrastructure in Africa. The AICD provides a baseline against which future improvements in infrastructure services can be measured, making it possible to monitor the results achieved from donor support. It also offers a solid empirical foundation for prioritizing investments and designing policy reforms in Africa's infrastructure sectors. The AICD is based on an unprecedented effort to collect detailed economic and technical data on African infrastructure. The project has produced a series of original reports on public expenditure, spending needs, and sector performance in each of the main infrastructure sectors, including energy, information and communication technologies, irrigation, transport, and water and sanitation. This report presents the key AICD findings for Mozambique, allowing the country's infrastructure situation to be benchmarked against that of its African peers. Given that Mozambique is poor but stable country, two sets of African benchmarks will be used to evaluate its situation: those for non fragile Low Income Countries (LICs) and those for Middle-Income Countries (MICs). Detailed comparisons will also be made with immediate regional neighbors in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Improvements in infrastructure in all parts of Sudan in recent years have had a strong impact on per capita growth, contributing 1.7 percentage points. Consistent with trends in other countries, the information and communication (ICT) revolution that swept Africa contributed the most to Sudan. Raising the infrastructure endowment of all parts of Sudan to that of the region's best performer, Mauritius, could boosts annual growth by about 3.5 percentage points. Sudan has invested heavily in infrastructure in recent years, with some notable achievements. Power generation capacity tripled in just a few years, rising from around 800 megawatts (MW) in 2005 to 2,687MW in 2007, with a shift toward hydropower. Nevertheless, service reliability remains an issue. In ICT, Sudan has made enormous strides in liberalizing the sector and as a result has attracted significant private capital. Mobile penetration soared from less than 1 percent in 2000 to 33 percent in 2009. Recent connectivity to an undersea fiber-optic cable has led to expansions in access, improvements in quality, and reduction in prices. Looking ahead, Sudan's most pressing infrastructure challenges lie in the water and transport sectors. Sudan's infrastructure development has so far had a national focus, and there is much that remains to be done to achieve greater regional integration. While internal road corridors are developed, connectivity with neighbors is largely absent. Sudan has a natural gateway to the sea through Port Sudan but the port's performance is severely hindered by long dwell times, high costs, and capacity constraints. Looking further ahead, Sudan has the potential to be a major hydropower exporter if additional capacity could be developed and transmission links with neighboring Nile Basin countries strengthened.

In recent years Mali's economy has grown steadily at a rate of more than 5 percent per year, driven by developments in gold mining, cereal harvests, and telecommunications. Mali's landlocked condition, together with its very uneven distribution of both population and economic activities between the arid north and the much richer south, challenge the country's ability to sustain this pace of growth. These two aspects define and challenge Mali's development and the infrastructure agendas. The country's strategic focus on the regional agenda has paid off to date, and critical institutional decisions are bringing many positive developments. More than 80 percent of Mali's segments of the West Africa road corridors are maintained in good or fair condition, giving the principal production areas of the south alternative access to the deep-water ports of Dakar, Adidjan, Takoradi, Tema, and Lome. Air transport security has improved, supported by the refurbishment of local airports, including Bamako airport, and the restructuring of Mali's Civil Aviation Authority to increase its autonomy and guarantee harmonization of air transportation rules across West Africa. Mali has also successfully liberalized its mobile telephone markets, with access approaching 40 percent in 2008. Roaming agreements and cross country competition have kept mobile prices low. Access to electricity in Mali more than doubled in the last decade, helped by the introduction of an apparently successful program for rural electrification (AMADER) that widened access to more than 36,000 rural households.

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.

Upgrading infrastructure plays a critical role in the Republic of Congo's quest to diversify its economy and reduce poverty. It is also an important source of growth on its own. A cross-country statistical analysis conducted for this report shows that infrastructure contributed one-half of one percentage point to the Republic of Congo's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth annually from 2001 to 2006. However, if the country's infrastructure could be improved to the level seen in Mauritius, the leading country in Sub-Saharan Africa, it could contribute more than 3 percentage points to annual per capita growth. The Republic of Congo's power infrastructure is inadequate and inefficiently operated. The country lags well behind peer countries in generation capacity and electrification. The parts of the population not served by the grid face exorbitant costs. The government has responded to these issues with an ambitious investment plan. However, if new assets are to operate effectively, major inefficiencies in the power utility will also need to be addressed. The utility's transmission and distribution losses are 47 percent, more than double best-practice benchmarks, while the cost of overstaffing is 30 percent of utility revenue. Tariffs recover barely half the cost of service provision, even though full cost recovery will be affordable to the population. In the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, the Republic of Congo has made good progress in developing its mobile telephony market in recent years, with high levels of signal coverage. The cost of international connectivity is currently high, but it should fall once the country connects to the international submarine cable and completes its domestic fiber optic network. On the other hand, the physically dilapidated and financially depleted condition of the fixed-line telephone operator is becoming a constraint to raising Internet penetration. The Republic of Congo performs relatively well on service coverage in the water and sanitation sector. The country's access statistics are substantially ahead of those in its peer group, particularly with regard to piped water, stand-posts, and improved latrines. However, access to services is much greater in urban areas than in rural areas. Furthermore, under-pricing of water has hurt the financial soundness of the water utility, even though analysis suggests that cost recovery tariffs would be affordable to consumers.

In this issue: trends: 10 years of private-sector participation in water; interview: Mozambiques industry behind the tap; and feature: irrigating Brazils semi-arid northeast.

Infrastructure has made a net contribution of around one percentage point to Nigeria's improved per capita growth performance in recent years, in spite of the fact that unreliable power supply held growth back. Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries could boost annual growth by around four percentage points. Nigeria has made important strides toward improving much of its infrastructure. Compared to many African peers, Nigeria has relatively advanced power, road, rail, and information and communications technology (ICT) networks that cover extensive areas of the nation's territory. In recent years, Nigeria has conducted several important infrastructure sector reforms. The ports sector has been converted to a landlord model, and terminal concessions now attract private investment on a scale unprecedented for Africa. The power sector is undergoing a restructuring, paving the way for performance improvements; the sector is finally on a path toward raising tariffs to recover a larger share of costs. Bold liberalization measures in the ICT sector have resulted in widespread, low-cost mobile services, Africa's most vibrant fixed-line sector, and major private investments in the development of a national fiber-optic backbone. A burgeoning domestic air transport sector has emerged, with strong private carriers that have rapidly attained regional significance.

Infrastructure plays a key role in promoting economic growth and opportunities.In particular, the efficient provision of basic infrastructure services, like water and sanitation, is a key ingredient in fostering a country's social and economic development. Previous studies have found that infrastructure has a positive impact on output, and can improve economic opportunity, including health and education for the poor, particularly in developing countries. In Argentina, a 2005 study, found that child mortality fell by 8 percent in areas that had experienced improved coverage and quality of basic water and sanitation through utility reform, with most of the reduction occurring in low-income areas where the water network expanded the most. More generally, Fay and Morrison found that allowing the poorest quintile in developing countries the same access to basic services as the richest quintile would reduce child mortality by 8 percent and child under development by 14 percent. Calderon and Serven also found a significant positive impact of infrastructure access and quality on overall inequality. Furthermore, the book sheds some light on how to address the main challenge for the future which may be to attract specialized operators to the smaller municipalities which do not currently have them. For that purpose in Colombia, for example, over the last two years, the policy framework has been focused on promoting the sector's development, by using the departments as the intermediate institutional level between the National Government and the municipalities, to formulate programs with regional impact and promote comprehensive investment plans.

This report was prepared in response to a request by the government of Honduras for assistance in the preparation of a power sector strategy for the country. Specifically, the government asked for help in identifying the main issues in the power sector, and in addressing them through formulation of a clearly defined, achievable strategy. Left unresolved, these issues risk derailing the country's macroeconomic framework, potentially damaging the competitiveness of the country and its prospects for poverty reduction. The main issues to be analyzed in the study were identified at a workshop held on September 19, 2006, in Tegucigalpa, jointly with the Secretaria de Recursos Naturales y Ambiente (SERNA) and the Comision Presidencial de Modernizacion del Estado (CPME), and with the participation of representatives from the Empresa Nacional de Energia Electrica (ENEE), civil society, the private sector, Congress, public sector agencies, donors, utilities, and ministries. It was decided that the study would be divided into two components: (a) the first would identify and evaluate options on institutional reforms, particularly ENEE's restructuring and management, and securing electricity supply; and (b) the second would formulate a power sector strategy. Two reports will be prepared, with the second report to be finalized according to the timing of the government's decision. This first report analyzes the institutional and policy issues; financial and fiscal concerns; social aspects, such as tariffs and subsidies, and access to electricity; and investment requirements including the development of renewable resources. The report is divided into two parts. Part A presents a diagnostic of the electricity sector, including ENEE's financial performance, fiscal impacts, and reliability of supply, institutional and legal framework, pricing policy, and electricity coverage. Part B evaluates the options available to improve sector efficiency, ensure financial sustainability, promote the diversification of energy sources, and increase electrification coverage.

The involvement of the rural private sector in water supply in Cambodia is unique to the country. The presence of this private sector allows other entities to respond to new demands from people living in the larger villages for household water supply, which the State is not yet able to address. These entrepreneurs operate on a merchant basis, lacking an institutional structure which is still being created. Their business is most often based on pushcart delivering water barrels at the house of villagers or more recently on small piped networks usually distributing raw surface water. Service is rough; the water quality is uncertain, but the users are satisfied with this service, because for them, it constitutes another alternative to the already considerable choice of water supplies available-ponds, wells, boreholes, and rivers. Their demands focus more on a practical objective (a supply in the household) than on a sanitary one, even if surveys show that villagers have a good understanding of health risks associated with water. Through the implementation of 14 small scale water supply systems, the goal was to enhance a qualitative improvement of the water service in some Cambodian small towns through the transformation of rough and informal merchant services to a basic water service supplying drinking water to an extended population under a formal institutional arrangement. The MIREP (Mini Reseaux d'Eau Potable - Small Scale Piped Water Supply System) program, launched in 2001 to transform these very basic initiatives into basic services, began as a pilot project supporting one entrepreneur in the implementation of a small piped water system. In order to move forward, the MIREP program made a choice, in particular linked to its proximity to the Ministry of rural development, to assist the nascent involvement of communes in decentralization, to strengthen provincial power through the process of decentralization, and to respect the cultural heritage of those who devised and financed the project.

Infrastructure contributed 1.2 percentage points to the annual per capita growth of Malawi's gross domestic product (GDP) over the past decade, thanks mainly to the revolution in information and communication technology (ICT). Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries could further boost annual growth by 3.5 percentage points per capita. Today, Malawi's basic infrastructure indicators look relatively good when compared with other low-income countries in Africa, although the performance of that infrastructure could be significantly improved. Malawi is one of the few African countries to have already reached the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water, almost a decade ahead of the target. The private sector has made Global Management System (GSM) telephone signals widely available without public subsidy. A substantial road investment program has raised the average condition of the country's road network, and a foundation for institutional reform has been laid in the ICT, power, and road transport sectors. Even if those inefficiencies could be eliminated, Malawi will still face an infrastructure funding gap of almost $300 million a year. This could be lessened to $100 million by engaging in regional trade of electricity, using lower-cost supply modalities in water supply and sanitation, and adopting appropriate technologies for road sector development. As long as efficiency gains are captured and spending sustained at the levels of the recent past, the country's infrastructure targets could be reached within 16 years.

This study is a product of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), a project designed to expand the world's knowledge of physical infrastructure in Africa. The AICD provides a baseline against which future improvements in infrastructure services can be measured, making it possible to monitor the results achieved from donor support. It also offers a solid empirical foundation for prioritizing investments and designing policy reforms in Africa's infrastructure sectors. The AICD is based on an unprecedented effort to collect detailed economic and technical data on African infrastructure. The project has produced a series of original reports on public expenditure, spending needs, and sector performance in each of the main infrastructure sectors, including energy, information and communication technologies, irrigation, transport, and water and sanitation. The focus of the AICD country reports is on benchmarking sector performance and quantifying the main financing and efficiency gaps at the country level. These reports are particularly relevant to national policy makers and development partners working on specific countries. This report presents the key AICD findings for Kenya, allowing the country's infrastructure situation to be benchmarked against that of its African peers. Given that Kenya is a relatively well-off low-income country that aspires to become a middle-income country, two sets of African benchmarks will be used to evaluate Kenya's situation. Detailed comparisons will also be made with immediate regional neighbors in the East African community.

Uganda has placed the fight against corruption high on the development agenda by establishing a range of anti-corruption institutions and strategies. The Uganda third National Integrity Survey, released in 2008 by the Inspectorate of Government, recommended that if Uganda was to make real progress in tackling corruption nationwide, individual sectors would need to undertake sector-specific studies to identify best practice and facilitate scaling-up of anti-corruption efforts. In that year, the good governance sub-sector working group, chaired by the Ministry of Water and Environment, commissioned a water integrity study to establish how citizens in both rural and urban areas contractors, private operators, local government officials and staff from the main water utility experience integrity in the provision of water services. The study would also facilitate development of an updated action plan to address integrity risks. This note describes the key ingredients to putting in place a nationwide good governance action plan in Uganda's water sector, the challenges to be overcome and lessons learned to date. The implications for practice are discussed from the perspectives of policy makers, regulators and ombudsmen, development partners, water service providers and civil society actors. This provides guidance for the replication of best practice by stakeholders in other countries and sectors.