Other Infrastructure Study
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Publication
A Study of Road Safety Lead Agencies in Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-02-22)This study of road safety lead agencies (RSLAs) in Africa takes place at an important time when serious injuries on roads are at the centre of discussions on sustainable development. RSLAs in Africa are considered to be critical vehicles for responding to road safety challenges, although how well they do this remains largely unknown. In literature, their functionality, complexity and autonomy has widely been assessed. However, there is limited attempt to link the management capacity of RSLAs to the observed road safety outcomes such as serious injuries and fatality reduction or reduction in the cost of road traffic crashes. Consequently, there is limited evidence as to whether or not lead agencies in Africa are achieving the intended goals of improving road safety status. This study sought to better understand these difficulties and the potential steps to success for RSLAs in Africa. It was commissioned by the African Development Bank and the World Bank and focuses on sixteen African countries. It is part of a global study of road safety lead agencies being undertaken by the World Health Organisation. The study is structured into four sections. Section 2 describes the two-phase methodology–desk study and preparation of the research instruments, data collection and analysis. This is followed in Section 3 by a discussion of the concept of lead agency, which lays the ground for presentation of the study results regarding lead agency performance in Section 4. Section 5 identifies lessons from the study and makes recommendations to improve lead agency performance. -
Publication
Road Safety Data In Africa: A Proposed Minimum Set of Road Safety Indicators for Data Collection, Analysis, and Reporting
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-01-23)Road safety in Africa remains a big challenge. Globally, Africa has the highest fatality rate of all the continents, despite having the lowest motorization rate and smallest road infrastructure network. Through the Global Plan for the Decade of Action (2011-2020), the African Road Safety Action Plan, the African Road Safety Charter, and the targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Africa has made strong commitments to improve road safety outcomes on the continent. However, documents assessing the magnitude of the problem show that there exists a need to address it by implementing effective and efficient interventions, which require determination, professional qualification, and personnel and economic resources. In order to make informed decisions on effective interventions to mitigate this challenge, a deeper analysis of the road safety-related environment in the region is required. This document outlines a process that began in 2017 to define a common set of indicators to be collected, analyzed, and monitored by African countries, as part of their efforts to improve road safety in Africa. -
Publication
Managing Risks for a Safer Built Environment in Malawi: Building Regulatory Capacity Assessment
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-06)In a rapidly urbanising world, Malawi remains one of the least urbanised countries in Africa. Approximately 16.7 percent of Malawi's population live in urban areas. Nevertheless, the country is urbanising at a moderate rate of approximately 3.7–3.9 percent per year. If growth continues at this rate, by 2030, approximately 20 percent of the population will be city dwellers, reaching 30 percent in 2050. This urban growth has the potential to improve economic opportunities and living conditions across Malawi. This is particularly significant given that approximately 69 percent of the population are living under the international poverty line of 1.9 US Dollars/day in purchasing power parity terms. However, challenges are also associated with this shift and concentration of population. With urbanisation comes a substantial amount of new construction. In Malawi, much of this new construction has occurred in cities and towns with limited capacity to ensure the structures in which people live, work and gather are safely sited and built to withstand chronic stresses (i.e. fire and spontaneous collapse) and disaster shocks (i.e. earthquakes and floods). In Lilongwe, for example, estimates indicate that 76 percent of residents live in informal settlements. These settlements are generally characterised by a lack of access to publicservices, tenure insecurity and inadequate housing. Malawi is impacted by a wide range of hazards, particularly droughts, floods, landslides, wildfires and earthquakes. Malawi is also vulnerable to recurrent and chronic risks. Large building fires in recent years include the LL and Mchinji Markets and the Mulanje Bus Depot in 2016 and the Area 13 and Zomba Market in 2018. In many ways, Malawi is at a crossroads: the regulatory decisions made now will significantly impact the longterm safety, productivity and resilience of the built environment in rural and urban areas. With its low base and moderate rate of urbanisation, Malawi is wellpositioned to formulate plans to maximise the benefits and to manage the challenges of urban agglomeration. -
Publication
International Experience in Bus Rapid Transit Implementation : Synthesis of Lessons Learned from Lagos, Johannesburg, Jakarta, Delhi, and Ahmedabad
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-01)It is in this context that this study has been undertaken to document BRT case studies in terms of the political setting, institutions/governance, public involvement and communications, service/operations/management and planning and their relationship to investment performance. The study has been undertaken in recognition of the fact that successful implementation and operation of BRT systems often reflects non-physical actors like leadership, communications, organizational structure, service planning and operating practices rather than the design of transitways, stations, terminals and vehicles. This paper does not seek to compare BRT with other forms of public transport but only seeks to evaluate a sample of BRT systems in terms of the softer issues that have contributed making a BRT system successful or not so successful. -
Publication
The Future of Water in African Cities : Why Waste Water? Integrating Urban Planning and Water Management in Sub-Saharan Africa, Background Report
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-01)This paper is one of a series of analytical studies commissioned by the World Bank's Africa Region and Water Anchor which are intended to identify and address the future challenges of urban water supply, sanitation and flood management in Sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) cities and towns. Following the terms of reference for the assignment, and as indicated by its title, the paper is directed at understanding and describing the linkages and interdependencies between water management and water security on the one hand, and urbanization, urban planning and development on the other. The paper is structured in six sections. Section one presents an overview of urbanization trends in SSA. This is followed by a discussion in Section two of what can be seen as the corollary of the unprecedented urban population growth now occurring and projected for SSA, large-scale urban expansion, involving potentially massive increases in urban land cover. This expansion has implications, also discussed in section two, for the internal structuring of African cities and towns, and for the planning and development of the overall urban form which is resulting, as well as for the environmental risks cities and towns face now and into the future. This 'poor urban planning' in the present-day has its roots in the inherited practices of colonial-era planning theories and practices, which are described in section three. These still resonate, as discussed in section four, which discusses key constituent aspects of contemporary planning systems in Africa, as illustrated by a number of case studies. In section five, the focus shifts to the current institutional experience with urban water management, again with a number of good practice cases provided. The author then turn in the concluding section seven to the key concern of this issues paper: that of integrating urban planning and water management as the Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) approach emerges- or, perhaps to put it better, of finding ways in which such integration can promote the emergence of IUWM. This is a necessary but difficult task, complicated by the reality that, as seen in the quote above, IUWM requires quite considerable coordination within the water sector alone. Moreover, our preceding analysis demonstrates, and this is the core argument of this paper, that seen from the side of the overall urban planning system, the deficiencies, decline and the delegitimizing of the 'traditional' planning system and practices in SSA, and the theory which underpins them, along with the failure to modernize them in a consistent fashion, has led, if anything, to greater fragmentation in the planning and managing of urban development. Land use planning and infrastructure (and other sector) planning, including water, typically occur in an uncoordinated fashion. This makes planning adequately for large-scale urban growth and expansion that much more difficult. -
Publication
The Future of Water in African Cities : Why Waste Water? Diagnostic of Urban Water Management in 31 Cities in Africa, Companion Volume
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-01)By 2030, Africa's urban population will double, and the difficulties African cities currently face in providing sustainable water services will be exacerbated. 'The future of water in African cities: why waste water?' argues that the traditional approach of one source, one system, and one discharge cannot close the water gap. A more integrated, sustainable, and flexible approach, which takes into account new concepts such as water fit to a purpose, is needed in African cities. The book provides examples of cities in Africa and beyond that have already implemented Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) approaches both in terms of technical and institutional solutions. Case studies explore the ways in which IUWM can help meet future water demand in African cities. Recent work carried out by Bahri (2012) on IUWM for the Global Water Partnership has also emphasized the necessity to examine the challenges posed by urban sprawl for urban planners and to recognize the need for coordinate, response, and sustainable resource management across sectors, sources, services and scales. The World Bank has recognized a need for an integrated approach to urban water management. As part hereof the issue has come to the forefront: What is the specific character of the water challenge in African cities and how can we compare the severity of the challenge, the need for integrated approach and the local capacity to respond to these challenges? The study presented in this companion volume is an initial attempt to answer this question. -
Publication
Water Supply and Sanitation in the Democratic Republic of Congo : Turning Finance into Services for 2015 and Beyond
(World Bank, Nairobi, 2012)The African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW) commissioned the production of a second round of Country Status Overviews (CSOs) to better understand what underpins progress in water supply and sanitation and what its member governments can do to accelerate that progress across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). AMCOW delegated this task to the World Bank's Water and Sanitation Program and the African Development Bank who are implementing it in close partnership with United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO) in over 30 countries across SSA. This CSO2 report has been produced in collaboration with the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and other stakeholders during 2009-10. The analysis aims to help countries assess their own service delivery pathways for turning finance into water supply and sanitation services in each of four subsectors: rural and urban water supply, and rural and urban sanitation and hygiene. The CSO2 analysis has three main components: i) a review of past coverage; ii) a costing model to assess the adequacy of future investments; and iii) a scorecard which allows diagnosis of particular bottlenecks along the service delivery pathway. The CSO2's contribution is to answer not only whether past trends and future finance are sufficient to meet sector targets, but what specific issues need to be addressed to ensure finance is effectively turned into accelerated coverage expansion in water supply and sanitation. In this spirit, specific priority actions have been identified through consultation with government and other sector stakeholders. A regional synthesis report, available separately, presents best practice and shared learning to help realize these priority actions. -
Publication
Access, Affordability, and Alternatives : Modern Infrastructure Services in Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-02)Africa lags well behind other developing regions in infrastructure access. The limited gains of the 1990s have not increased much in the 2000s. There is clear evidence that many countries are failing to expand services fast enough to keep ahead of rapid demographic growth and even faster urbanization. As a result, if present trends continue, Africa is likely to lag even further behind other developing regions, and universal access will be more than 50 years away in many countries. However, there is variation in performance across countries, even within the low and middle income brackets. A significant number of countries have succeeded in increasing the number of people who have access to water, electricity, and sanitation, by an annual average of 5-10 percent. Further investigation is warranted to explain what determines the superior performance of these countries.