Other Infrastructure Study

341 items available

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Integrating Resilience into Municipal Infrastructure Delivery in Kenya: Guidance Note for Municipal and County Engineer and Planners - Urban Resilient Infrastructure Guideline

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-09-01) World Bank

This Resilient Urban Infrastructure Guidelines forms one of a suite of reports developed by AECOM for the World Bank Group under the ‘Enhancement of Resilient Urban Planning and Infrastructure Investments in Urban Areas in Kenya’ assignment and constitutes Deliverable 2. This guidance note provides simple guidance for increasing the resilience of municipal infrastructure projects, and of communities, to physical risks, notably impacts of climate changes. This will increase the sustainability of investments under Second Kenya Urban Support Program (KUSP2), enabling them to perform their required function for their proposed design life, in a changing climate. It follows, roughly chronologically, the project development and design process. For the purposes of this note, resilient urban infrastructure is defined as infrastructure that is designed to deliver essential services now and in the future. It is prepared for and can withstand, adapt and recover positively from the physical (and climatic) shocks and stresses it may face over its lifetime. This is both with regards to the assets themselves, as well as the wider system that these assets are part of, which could include: the natural environment, the urban system, the operators, and the communities that interact with them.
Building Regulations in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Status Review of the Building Regulatory Environment

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-06-20) World Bank ; Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery

Buildings should provide safe, comfortable, and healthy environments for people to live and work. They are an essential component of societies and economies, housing critical infrastructure necessary to keep governments and businesses in operation. At the same time, buildings are the first line of defense against natural hazards and climate impacts for the general population. The scope of this report is limited to regulatory frameworks in Sub-Saharan Africa countries, with a focus on buildings rather than on specialized construction types such as infrastructure for water, energy, transport, or communications. The report focuses on the technical aspects of the regulatory frameworks: market and financial solutions fall beyond its scope. Chapter 1 of the report describes the components, concepts, and desired outcomes of building regulatory frameworks. Chapter 2 explains the evolution of the building regulation environment in Sub-Saharan Africa and the region-specific hazards and risks that the regulatory environment must respond to. Chapter 3 presents data on the building regulatory environment for each country in the region. It covers all aspects of the building regulatory cycle: from the legally adopted building regulations that exist, to what they cover, to the implementation of regulations through compliance and enforcement mechanisms. Chapter 4 offers guidance on how to improve and update building regulatory frameworks. Chapter 5 contains region-specific conclusions and recommendations for strengthening building regulatory frameworks because of the analyses carried out in Chapters 3 and 4. Additionally, Appendix A summarizes key data for each country.
Transport and Logistics: Myanmar Infrastructure Monitoring

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-03-31) World Bank

Transport and logistics services in Myanmar have been substantially hit by the impacts of the February 2021 coup and the surge in Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases. Logistics companies have been affected by rising fuel prices, border closures, and a shortage of shipping containers. While the initial effects after the military coup on the transport sector were extremely severe, there have been signs of some recovery of transport services since May 2021. Public transport in Yangon experienced a significant reduction in passenger demand in early months after the coup, subsequently recovering some ground by December 2021. Higher fuel prices and currency liquidity shortages significantly increased the cost of inland transport services. Transportation and logistics services are expected to be severely impacted by continuing high fuel prices, mobility constrains, political instability, and evolution of the pandemic. The export and import via container are expected to recover gradually due to agricultural and garment industry-led demand. However, improvement of exports and imports in the medium term is uncertain given the complexity of trade relations with international trade partners. In addition to effects of the coup and political conflicts, risks related to the pandemic will also significantly impact logistics supply chains and mobility in the near to mid-term.
Transport Asset Management Plan Guideline for Climate Resilience and Road Safety (Phase I) for the Municipality of Ulaanbaatar

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-02-01) World Bank

This is the first iteration of a Transport Asset Management Planning (TAMP) Guideline for Ulaanbaatar. This TAMP Guideline I guides the Municipality of Ulaanbaatar (MUB) to move away from its conventional reactive decision-making approach and adopt a systematic, evidence- and risk-based approach in maintaining its road assets. The reactive way of doing business, which postpones repair activities until major deterioration occurs, is no longer sustainable. It is too expensive, and it erodes the value of important and costly road assets. As the costs of operating and repairing roads continue to increase, it has become more difficult for the MUB to meet the demands of an aging and expanding infrastructure while dealing with public expectations to provide the same level of service. This TAMP Guideline can therefore serve as a medium- and long-term tactical guide for MUB to plan for repair and maintenance of its transport assets to provide good quality road network to UB’s citizens while optimizing the use of its scarce financial resources for maintenance and repairs. The TAMP incorporates two key risks that strain the performance and safety of UB’s road network: climate risks (particularly urban flooding) and road safety risks.
Reforming and Rebuilding Lebanon's Port Sector: Lessons from Global Best Practices

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-12) World Bank

On August 4, 2020, a massive explosion in the Port of Beirut (PoB) devastated the city, killing at least 200 people, wounding thousands, and displacing around 300,000. A Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA), prepared by the World Bank in cooperation with the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU), estimated damage to the port at about 350 million dollars. This Note was prepared by the World Bank to provide guidance to policy makers in Lebanon on the crucial additional requirements to be undertaken in the rebuilding of the PoB in terms of both improving its resilience and addressing the underlying governance concerns that are broadly acknowledged to have contributed to the tragedy. The Note summarizes global best practices in port management and border management reforms. The PoB is the main gateway for the external trade of Lebanon, but it has failed in the key role as an enabler of economic development in the country. Despite the growth in volumes and revenues in the port over the last 10-15 years, the PoB has evidently failed to guarantee safe and efficient operations, and to undertake the necessary long-term planning for the benefit of the port and the country. More importantly it has underperformed in its key role as an enabler of economic development at a national level and has made a limited contribution to fostering socio-economic development more broadly. These failures are a direct result of the current governance framework of the PoB. Lebanon adheres to a port management system that arguably reflects the complex political-economic realities, and which as a result run counter to many recognized good practices. The governance of the sector is a patchwork of ad-hoc institutions, structures, laws and regulations that preclude the development of a coherent integrated strategy. The current framework inhibits efficiency as several key government agencies for transport, trade, and border management have overlapping mandates, divergent strategies, often operate under outdated processes and regulations and do not coordinate among themselves. Since 1990, the PoB has been managed by a temporary administrative committee, established in a legal vacuum. This has resulted in serious governance, transparency, and accountability issues. The Lebanese Customs is not structured to perform its mission properly. Its two parallel institutions, the Higher Council for Customs and the Customs Directorate have proven to be inefficient and subject to political exploitation and power struggles. The tragic explosion in PoB clearly illustrates the evident shortcomings of the current institutional set-up as well as the risks emanating from the no-reform scenario.
Business Regulation in South Asia and the Belt and Road Initiative

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11-24) World Bank

This study provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of the business environment in six South Asian countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, to examine whether business regulatory requirements in these countries hinder them from fully benefiting from BRI project spillovers. The analysis is based on available secondary data sources and responses to a structured questionnaire sent to selected private sector participants in each of these countries, eliciting information on the law, regulation, and practice in a wide range of thematic areas influencing the overall business and regulatory environment. Survey respondents identified nine key themes as the most challenging for the private sector, including from the perspective of potential benefits from BRI-induced opportunities. The thematic areas are: (a) licensing and inspection requirements; (b) regulations and practices governing foreign investment; (c) access to resources such as land, credit, and electricity; (d) regulatory restrictions on the operation of foreign firms, such as local content requirements and currency repatriation; (e) regulatory governance and corruption and state capture; (f) predictability and quality of the regulatory framework, especially corporate taxation; (g) government procurement laws and practice; (h) effective dispute settlement and grievance mechanisms; and (i) trade and customs regulations. The identified thematic areas promote connectivity and regional integration and thus are particularly relevant from the BRI perspective. Improvements along different dimensions of these thematic areas will likely enable countries in the region to gain from BRI-induced opportunities.
Mongolia InfraSAP: Infrastructure for Connectivity and Economic Diversification

(World Bank, Ulaanbaatar, 2020-11-10) World Bank

Like many emerging economies, policy discussions on social and economic growth in Mongolia often gravitate to transport, energy and digital infrastructure as the backbone. ‘What infrastructure?’ and ‘infrastructure for what?’ are equally important questions given the aspirations to unlock new drivers of growth beyond mining and export of primary products. Mongolia’s vast territorial expanse and low population density create unique challenges for economic development in general and infrastructure investments in particular. Sandwiched between China and the Russia, two of the largest countries and economies in the world, Mongolia is the least densely populated country in the world. With just over 3.2 million people inhabiting a territory of 1.564 million square kilometers (more than six times the size of the United Kingdom and less than a third the population of London), Mongolia has a population density of 2.1 people per square kilometer. About half the population—some 1.4 million people—live in the capital city Ulaanbaatar. The rest of the population is spread across small urban centers and vast steppes. Given the spatial and density challenges, the conventional ‘build and they shall come’ approach to developing infrastructure has proved sub-optimal. Mongolia has some of the largest average transport distances (600km) and highest logistics costs (30% of GDP). The infrastructure challenge is made worse by the limited financing options. This infraSAP presents a more sophisticated approach which incorporates strategic value chain analysis and disaggregated modeling of freight movements, and then targets infrastructure investment for amplified impact. In this approach, infrastructure is located at the highest concentrations of economic activity and is developed as part of an integrated national logistics system. This surgical approach informs more targeted policy decisions on how to use scarce resources to accelerate economic diversification and competitiveness while addressing institutional bottlenecks.
Road Geohazard Risk Management Handbook

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-10) Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery

This handbook outlines an approach to proactively manage the risks of geohazards on roads, road users, and the people living near and affected by road. This handbook is structured to support road geohazard risk management sequentially and systematically: Part I, Framework for Road Geohazard Risk Management, helps users understand the framework for road geohazard risk management, introduces some basic concepts, and provides context to the overall handbook; Part II, Institutional Capacity and Coordination, covers the institutional arrangements that are necessary for the successful implementation of geohazard management; Part III, Systems Planning, covers the systems planning aspects, pertaining to the identification, assessment, and evaluation of risks, along with raising awareness of disasters; Part IV, Engineering and Design, deals with the engineered solutions to address geohazard risks, giving examples of different solutions to particular risk types; Part V, Operations and Maintenance, focuses on the operations and maintenance aspects of geohazard management whether the maintenance of previously engineered solutions or the nonengineered solutions available to mitigate the impacts of geohazard risks; Part VI, Contingency Planning, addresses contingency programming issues, such as postdisaster response and recovery, and the important issue of funding arrangements; and Part VII, References and Resource Materials, contains the reference list and additional online resources. Additionally, this handbook includes standard templates for terms of reference (ToRs) that can be adapted for technical assistance projects for road geohazard risk management (see Appendix A) and an operation manual (OM) for the practitioners involved with road geohazard risk management (see Appendix B).
Greener Transport Connectivity for Eastern Partnership Countries

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06) World Bank

The Eastern Partnership (EaP) is a joint policy initiative, which aims to deepen and strengthen relations between the European Union (EU) and its six Eastern neighbours. One of its four priority areas is stronger connectivity which includes the extension of the Trans European Transport Network (TEN-T) to the EaP region. On the policy front, it aims at achieving regulatory convergence across transport modes between member countries and with the EU to heighten the focus on energy efficiency and combat climate change. The EaP countries experienced a large shock to their economies following the end of the Soviet Union in 1989. At the same time, EaP countries are acutely aware of the need to converge with the EU in terms of energy efficiency, environment and climate change goals. The EU is currently formalising its European Green Deal, which is a roadmap for making the EU's economy sustainable. The objective of this study is to assist decision-makers in prioritizing strategic transport policies and infrastructure investments. It develops the evidence base and prioritisation framework for improving the transport sector of the region including improved energy efficiency and sustainability so that it is not left behind by advances in the EU. The study has also developed an online visualization tool to help policy makers explore and use the results of the modelling exercise.
Belt and Road Initiative: Azerbaijan Country Case Study

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-06) Bogdan, Olena ; Najdov, Evgenij

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), announced in 2013 and formalized in 2015, is China’s long-term commitment and aims to improve connectivity within Asia as well as between Asia and other continents via transport corridors (rail, road, maritime, air) and deeper economic, political, and cultural integration between China and the countries in Europe and Africa (National Development and Reform Commission, 2015). This study analyzes a potential impact of the BRI on Azerbaijan’s economy by focusing on (1) Azerbaijan’s connectivity and trade with the BRI economies; (2) its recent improvements in transport, power, and ICT infrastructure as part of the China, Central Asia, West Asia economic corridor; (3) its remaining connectivity gaps and challenges; and (4) potential economic effects of BRI on Azerbaijan’s trade, foreign investment, growth and welfare. Finally, the study concludes with policy implications that would mitigate the BRI risks and maximize the benefits.