Other Infrastructure Study
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Publication
Navigating Beyond COVID-19: Airline Recovery and Regulatory Reform Opportunities in Southern Africa
(Washington, DC, 2022-09)This policy paper explores airline restructuring and regulatory reform challenges and opportunities in the Southern African region with particular focus on Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the air transport sector in the region faced multipronged challenges, including those related to economic regulation, profitability, safety, security, and sustainable financing of critical infrastructure. Much like the rest of Africa, the region is characterized by the dominance of troubled state-owned airlines which have been unable to generate meaningful positive returns for many years due to structural inefficiencies and weak governance. They faced elevated costs and needed several bailouts and turnaround strategies, albeit unsuccessful. -
Publication
Guinea-Bissau Digital Economy Diagnostic
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022)Many Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, including Guinea-Bissau, lack the requisite enabling environment to capture a larger fraction of the global digital economy or benefit from its gains and are thus at increasing risk of being left behind. Rapid digital transformation is reshaping the global economy, driving financing inclusion, closing information gaps between buyers and sellers, and changing the way economies of scale are achieved. In many, although certainly not all, parts of the continent, access to and affordability of broadband internet remains low; for that matter, even access to electricity is low, preventing Africans from being able to go online. Most public services remain offline, and many Africans lack digital identity or mobile wallets to take advantage of digital financial or other services. Digital skills and literacy remain weak. Finally, although venture capital investment on the continent continues to grow, 2021 witnessed 681 rounds of fundraising across 640 startups, totaling US5.2 billion dollars in equity raised, according to the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, structural constraints prevent businesses from taking greater advantage of the digital economy. Of the 716 financial technology (fintech) companies currently operating in SSA, only 5 percent have scaled. In this context, the WBG has undertaken this digital economy diagnostic of Guinea-Bissau under the leadership of the Ministry of Transport and Communication and the Vice Prime Minister. Based on desk research, virtual and in person interviews with a wide range of public and private sector stakeholders, and an April 2022 field mission to discuss preliminary findings and proposed recommendations, this report analyzes the constraints in each of the five foundational pillar and puts forward actionable recommendations categorized by priority level and sequencing. Overall, it aims to inform the national dialogue, as well as next steps, around Guinea-Bissau’s digital transformation, a policy agenda in which the Government of Guinea Bissau (GoGB) has expressed keen interest. -
Publication
Steering Towards Cleaner Air: Measures to Mitigate Transport Air Pollution in Addis Ababa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-09)Air pollution, exacerbated by urbanization and motorization, is a growing concern in Addis Ababa and many other SSA cities. In Addis Ababa, air pollution from the urban transport sector is attributable to rapid motorization, an aging vehicle fleet, high sulfur fuels, lack of emission standards, and inadequate vehicle inspection and enforcement, calling for a shift towards integrated transport and air quality management. The report is one of the deliverables of the World Bank’s Advisory Services & Analytics program entitled “Ethiopia: Air Quality Management and Urban Mobility.” It aims to assess mitigation options for transport emissions for Addis Ababa (AA) in the Ethiopian context and recommend priority measures for short- and mid-term actions. The formulation of potential mitigation options builds upon a review of relevant development strategies and ongoing initiatives of the Federal and AA governments and development partners, the Ethiopian and international experiences, the results of Addis Ababa’s source apportionment study including vehicle emission inventory conducted for this ASA, and consultations with relevant stakeholders. A set of transport air pollution mitigation measures are assessed, prioritized and recommended for Addis Ababa. -
Publication
Flood-Resilient Mass Transit Planning in Ouagadougou
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06)Ouagadougou, the largest city in Burkina Faso, is growing rapidly, with the annual rate reaching 9 percent by some estimates, and with commensurate challenges for ensuring efficient mobility for its residents. Like many urban areas in Sahelian West Africa, Ouagadougou is also highly vulnerable to extreme hydro-meteorological events. In the context of the plans to develop an efficient, bus-based mass transit system in Ouagadougou in the medium term, the study aimed to characterize the spatial distribution and severity of flood risk affecting the planned system; and to identify, evaluate, and prioritize interventions that will increase its resilience. The study focuses on a pilot sector of 67 km, covering a large part of central Ouagadougou and its strategic infrastructures, at the intersection of the future planned mass transit system and the areas of the city a priori considered more flood prone (for example, near the major dams). By working with a local drone operator and an international flood modelling firm, the study constructed high spatial resolution digital elevation and digital terrain models for the area of interest (AOI), which served as inputs for developing a hydrological model. To further classify the road and future mass transit sections in order to prioritize interventions, the analysis applied the criteria of an area priority score and a flood criticality score, which together combine into an overall impact score. The importance of good planning and policy and regulatory actions vis-a-vis more structural engineering solutions is underlined by the fact that the top two measures singled out by the multicriteria analysis are so-called soft solutions - related to the maintenance and cleaning of the flood-related structures and the reinforcement of the waste collection system. -
Publication
Enhancing Burkina Faso Regional Connectivity: An Economic Corridor Approach
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-12)Regional integration and international connectivity via economic corridors play an essential role in reducing the isolation of West Africa’s landlocked countries such as Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso’s main international corridors are the Ouagadougou-Lomé road corridor connecting it to Togo, the Ouagadougou-Tema (Ghana) road corridor, and the Ouagadougou-Niamey (Niger) road corridor, as well as the Ouagadougou-Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire) road and rail corridors. Each of the corridors plays a unique role in regional integration, national trade, and sub-national rural and urban development, by providing connectivity to consumption centers, economic production zones, and/or economically lagging areas. The national perspective suggests that the Ouagadougou-Lomé corridor is very important for Burkina Faso’s imports, serving as the artery for about 40 percent of all cargo entering the country, while the Ouagadougou-Abidjan road and rail corridors play an equally crucial role in allowing Burkina Faso’s exports to reach global markets. The region’s trunk road infrastructure is in fair-to-good condition on most sections, although large gaps remain on corridors such as the eastern link between Lomé and Niamey. This study develops several scenarios of corridor interventions that address the inefficiencies to quantify the expected impacts in terms of real income growth and domestic market accessibility. -
Publication
Transportation and Supply Chain Resilience in the United Republic of Tanzania: Assessing the Supply-Chain Impacts of Disaster-Induced Transportation Disruptions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06)The economy of the United Republic of Tanzania is growing fast but remains vulnerable to disasters, which are likely to worsen with climate change. Its transportation system, which mainly consist of roads, often get disrupted by floods. How could the resilience of the transportation infrastructures be improved? We formulate a new type of model, called DisruptSCT, which brings together the strength of two different approaches: network criticality analyses and input–output models. Using a variety of data, we spatially disaggregate production, consumption, and input–output relationships. Plugged into a dynamic agent-based model, these downscaled data allow us to simulate the disruption of transportation infrastructures, their direct impacts on firms, and how these impacts propagate along supply chains and lead to losses to households. These indirect losses generally affect people that are not directly hit by disasters. Their intensity nonlinearly increases with the duration of the initial disruption. Supply chains generate interdependencies that amplify disruptions for nonprimary products, such as processed food and manufacturing products. We identify bottlenecks in the network. But their criticality depends on the supply chain we are looking at. For instance, some infrastructures are critical to some agents, say international buyers, but of little use to others. Investment priorities vary with policy objectives, e.g., support health services, improve food security, promote trade competitiveness. Resilience-enhancing strategies can act on the supply side of transportation, by improving the quality of targeted infrastructure, developing alternative corridors, building capacity to accelerate post-disaster recovery. On the other hand, policies could also support coping mechanisms within supply chains, such as sourcing and inventory strategies. Our results help articulate these different policies and adapt them to specific contexts. -
Publication
Infrastructure Development in Edo State: Adapting to Constraints and Creating Capabilities
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-04-29)Governor Adams Oshiomhole assumed office in November 2008 following a successful court appeal to retrieve the mandate given to him by the people of Edo. Widespread support from a variety of interest groups buttressed the legal challenge and helped create the political space for the Governor’s pursuit of an agenda focused on both reform and speedy delivery. Popular demand for reform was evident, but responding to this presented major challenges. Historically,Edo had been one of the best performing states in the country. Expectations were high that he would restore this status and address the perceived poor performance and allegations of corruption leveled against previous administrations. This case study is an attempt to better understand the process through which the Administration was able to maximize its delivery. This report is one product of several ongoing efforts by the World Bank to better understand how to better tailor its interventions to local realities with the overarching objective of improving its impact. To do this in the case of capital spending in Edo, it was necessary to craft a study method that suspended judgments about actual practices. Thus, rather than holding these practices up to international standards, and highlighting deficits and shortcomings in relation to those standards, the study purpose was to depict how the State administration had responded to the political priorities of the new Governor by adapting to the constraints it faced and creating new ways to deliver through infrastructure spending. This case study underlines the very rich and often messy reality that leaders frequently find when assuming office and the trade-offs that they are forced to make. In doing so, it reminds us of the political realities within which we work and, like other case studies recently undertaken to inform Bank engagements in Nigeria, finds that traditional blue print approaches in such circumstances are unlikely to work and that sequencing, tailoring to local contexts and adaptation along a non-linear road to reform is more feasible path. -
Publication
Growth Poles Program : Political Economy of Social Capital
(Washington, DC, 2014-04)The Government of Sierra Leone (GosL) and the World Bank (WB) have agreed upon the design and implementation of a growth poles program (GPP) in support of the agenda for prosperity (A4P), the GoSL's third poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSPIII). With support from the European Union competitive industries and innovation practice trust fund, the WB has been undertaking a series of scoping and diagnostic analyses on the GPP since early 2013, and to date this work has constituted the main part of the first phase of the approach (the initial diagnostic stage). This diagnostic work was completed in August 2013 and the diagnostic report confirmed that the growth pole approach can feasibly support and facilitate economic development in two geographical areas of the country. This analytical report attempts to provide a window into the undercurrents and the nuances that affect and shape the characteristics of host communities into which investment takes place. The report also highlights the various input considerations that need to be acknowledged (land, labor, community relations), the governance framework into which the future growth poles approach will fit - central, local, and community and finally concludes with a series of recommendations around key policy, institutional, cross linkages, and contextual challenges that the growth poles approach must consider as it attempts to underpin the government's growth by foreign direct investment agenda. -
Publication
ICT as an Enabler of Transformation in Ethiopia
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-01)Over the last two decades, Ethiopia has achieved remarkable progress toward social and economic indicators. Analytical evidence shows that development projects with a significant information and communication technology (ICT) component have a higher potential to achieve greater outcomes on the ground than the ones not supported by ICT. This is why the Government of Ethiopia sees ICT within the broader context of its socioeconomic development objectives and believes that it should take advantage of today's most innovative and reliable technologies to accelerate the rate of economic growth and alleviate poverty in the country. The Government of Ethiopia has requested the ICT sector unit of the World Bank to prepare a comprehensive report on how ICT can be used to achieve a true transformation of the Ethiopian economy and society. Therefore, this report explores how ICT can be leveraged to foster the development of an ICT-enabled industry and the private sector in general, to enhance public sector performance, to develop the agriculture and health sectors, and finally how all these efforts can lead to the emergence of an open innovation ecosystem. This report takes stock of current and recently-launched ICT initiatives in Ethiopia and develops sector-specific recommendations based on international best practices that help leverage the transformative power of ICT to improve the social and economic well-being of citizens and achieve rapid and sustainable socioeconomic development. The report explores following topics: background in chapter one, presents fostering the development of ICT-enabled industry and the private sector in chapter two. Chapter three deals with enhancing the performance of the public sector. Chapter four is developing the health sector. Chapter five deals with agricultural and rural development. Chapter six helps in creating an open innovation ecosystem; and chapter seven presents recommendations for ICT-enabled transformation in Ethiopia. -
Publication
Zimbabwe Infrastructure Policy Review
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-12-09)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.