Financing African Infrastructure: Can the World Deliver?

In 2009, the World Bank and major donors and multilateral institutions investigated the challenge of addressing sub-Saharan Africa's lack of infrastructure. That comprehensive regional analysis aimed to establish “a baseline against which future improvements in infrastructure services can be measured” and guide priority investments and policy reforms. The analysis estimated that the region needed $93 billion per year to fill the infrastructure gap. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the main sources of infrastructure financing have evolved over the last eight years, the distribution of that financing by country and sector, and how financing efforts have responded to the recommendations made in 2009. The paper begins with an analysis of the three major sources of external financing: private participation in infrastructure (PPI) investments; official development finance (ODF) from multilateral institutions and most of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development-Development Assistance Committee (OECD-DAC) donors; and official Chinese financing. Although there are challenges to compiling the financing data in a comparable manner, the information is sufficient to establish the pattern of support across countries and sectors. This analysis is followed by a review of domestic public funding. This paper also discusses the governance issues that are critical to ensuring the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of these investment outcomes.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 76p

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01560963
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Apr 24 2015 10:24AM