Other Infrastructure Study
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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
Railways in Sub-Saharan Africa
(World Bank, 2009-06-01)The changed role of rail in Africa over the last thirty years has seen it move from a situation where many of the systems were carrying a high share of their country's traffic to one in which their market share has declined, their assets have steadily deteriorated, their quality of service has reduced, and they are in many instances only a minor contributor to solving the transport problems of the continent. The first railways south of the Sahara were built in South Africa in the 1860's and 1870's, with lines heading inland from the ports at Cape Town and Durban. The networks in what were then Cape Province, Natal and Transvaal continued to develop but it was not until the turn of the twentieth century that large-scale railway development began in other parts of the continent. In almost every case, the pattern was the same, with isolated lines heading inland from a port to reach a trading centre or a mine, and a few branch lines then being built over a period of time. As almost all the lines were constructed under colonial administrations, many of the lines were state-owned but several were also constructed as concessions or, in the case of some mineral developments, by the mining company as an integral part of its mining operation. Nevertheless, the rhetoric accompanying some of the transactions suggests that many politicians believe, or want to believe, that the concession award will be the prelude to very substantial investments by the concessionaires, particularly in infrastructure. To date, this has barely materialized, with most infrastructure improvements being done with international financial institution (IFI) or donor funds. The main issue for most sub-Saharan railways is whether concessioning is just a temporary solution or whether some alternative approach is needed to ensure a long-term future for railway systems providing acceptable levels of service. -
Publication
Zimbabwe Infrastructure Dialogue in Roads, Railways, Water, Energy, and Telecommunication Sub-Sectors
(Washington, DC, 2008-06)In the 1990s, Zimbabwe's economic growth began to slow following a balance of payments crisis and repeated droughts. By the late 1990s Zimbabwe's economy was in serious trouble driven by economic mismanagement, political violence, and the wider impact of the land reform program on food production. During 2007 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contract by more than 6 percent, making the cumulative output decline over 35 percent since 1999. The unrelenting economic deterioration is doing long-term damage to the foundations of the Zimbabwean economy, private sector investment is virtually zero, infrastructure has deteriorated, and skilled professionals have left the country. With inflation accelerating, the Government introduced, in 2007, blanket price controls and ordered businesses to cut prices by half. Despite the strict price controls inflation continues to rise as the root cause of high inflation, monetization of the large public sector financing needs remains unaddressed. A large part of the high public sector deficit is due to quasi-fiscal spending by the central bank on mainly concessional credits and subsidized foreign exchange for priority sectors, unrealized exchange rate losses, and losses incurred by the central bank's open market operations to mop up liquidities. -
Publication
More Fiscal Resources for Infrastructure? Evidence from East Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2007-06)This paper evaluates the extent of fiscal resource availability for infrastructure in four East African countries and explores the main options for its expansion. A number of major channels will be examined. The first is the extent to which expenditure is well allocated across sectors, sub-sectors, expense categories, jurisdictions and geographic areas. The second is the extent to which there is scope for improving efficiency by enhancing the operational performance of state owned enterprises (SOEs), restoring adequate levels of maintenance, or improving the selection and implementation of investment projects. The third is the extent to which user charges are applied and set at levels consistent with cost recovery. The fourth is the extent to which private sector participation has been fully exploited as a vehicle for raising investment finance. While it is difficult to evaluate these things very precisely, a number of proxy indicators are used to shed light on the matter. -
Publication
The Evolution of Enterprise Reform in Africa : From State-Owned Enterprises to Private Participation in Infrastructure—and Back?
(Washington, DC, 2005-11)From the outset state-owned enterprises (SOE) financial and economic performance generally failed to meet the expectations of their creators and funders. There were African SOEs that performed, at least for a time, adequately and sometimes very well, by the most stringent of standards (e.g., Ethiopian Airlines, the Kenya Tea Development Authority, Sierra Leone's Guma Valley Water Company). But the good performers were heavily outnumbered by the bad. Numerous studies and reports from this period document the poor technical and financial performance of African SOEs in general and infrastructure SOEs in particular. Many of the latter failed to produce a sufficient quantity or a high quality of service or product, and posed increasing financial burdens on strained state budgets. -
Publication
Kenya : Transport Sector Memorandum, Volume 1. Strategy
(Washington, DC, 2003-01)This Memorandum is intended to initiate discussion regarding the appropriate infrastructure strategy and policy direction which will lead to a sustainable transport sector which provides access for people and goods within Kenya and integrates Kenya into the global economy. Unless these two objectives are achieved, the prospects for substantial and continuing social and economic development in Kenya are limired. Large segments of Kenya's population will remain isolated in the rural areas, and the economy will continue as a producer of primary commodities and basic manufactues for domestic and perhaps regional consumption. The report states as the first and most important action to reverse the deterioration in the transport sector, a very major change in the philosophic approach of politicians to the sector is needed. They have to start to treat infrastructure as integral to the economic rather than the political process. Beyond this overarching change in approach, the following should also be considered as needed steps for implementing the strategy: increase private sector investment and management in the ports, airports, railways, and roads systems; reduce the role of the public sector in day-to-day management while retaining core functions for all modes of transportation and increasing public funding; and in terms of financing, rely on performance contracting under either maintenance concessions or long-term performance-based contracts.