Maria Shkaratan

Africa's Power Infrastructure : Investment, Integration, Efficiency

This study is a product of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), a project designed to expand the worlds knowledge of physical infrastructure in Africa. The AICD provides a baseline against which future improvements in infrastructure services can be measured, making it possible to monitor the results achieved from donor support. It also offers a more solid empirical foundation for prioritizing investments and designing policy reforms in the infrastructure sectors in Africa. The book draws upon a number of background papers that were prepared by World Bank staff and consultants, under the auspices of the AICD. The main findings were synthesized in a flagship report titled Africas infrastructure: A time for transformation, published in November 2009. Meant for policy makers, that report necessarily focused on the high-level conclusions. It attracted widespread media coverage feeding directly into discussions at the 2009 African union commission heads of state summit on infrastructure.

Power Tariffs: Caught between Cost Recovery and Affordability

This is the first paper to build a comprehensive empirical picture of power pricing practices across Sub-Saharan Africa, based on a new database of tariff structures in 27 countries for the years 2004-2008. Using a variety of quantitative indicators, the paper evaluates the performance of electricity tariffs against four key policy objectives: recovery of historic power production costs, efficient signaling of future power production costs, affordability to low income households, and distributional equity. As regards cost recovery, 80 percent of the countries in the sample fully recover operating costs, while only around 30 percent of the countries are practicing full recovery of capital costs. However, due to the fact that future power development may be based on a shift toward more economic technologies than those available in the past, existing tariffs look as though they would be consistent with Long Run Marginal Costs in nearly 40 percent of countries and hence provide efficient pricing signals. As regards affordability, todays average effective tariffs are affordable for 90 percent of todays customers. However, they would only be affordable for 25 percent of households that remain unconnected to the grid. Tariffs consistent with full recovery of economic costs would be affordable for 70 percent of the population. As regards equity, the highly regressive patterns of access to power services, ensure that subsidies delivered through electricity tariffs are without exception also highly regressive in distributional incidence. The conclusion is that achieving all four of these policy objectives simultaneously is almost impossible in the context of the high-cost low-income environment that characterizes much of SSA today. Hence most countries find themselves caught between cost recovery and affordability.

Mine Closure and its Impact on the Community: Five Years After Mine Closure in Romania, Russia, and Ukraine

Against the backdrop of economic transition, several countries in Eastern Europe have undertaken far-reaching programs to restructure their coal sectors, which in the 1990s were in a state of deep crisis. One aspect of restructuring has been the closure of loss-making mines, which are often located in communities where the coal industry is the dominant employer, and the significant downsizing of the workforce. Mitigation efforts that are implemented at the time of mine closure (such as severance payments) are usually intended only for the laid-off workers. The authors examine the impact of mine closure on the entire community five years after mine closure in Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. Using quantitative and qualitative research methods and based on interviews with national, regional, and local experts, and members of the affected population, the authors describe the effect of mine closure and evaluate the various mitigation efforts that have been used by governments in such cases. They conclude with policy recommendations of broad relevance to programs of industrial restructuring in communities dominated by a single industry.

Malawi's infrastructure: a continental perspective

Infrastructure contributed 1.2 percentage points to the annual per capita growth of Malawis gross domestic product (GDP) over the past decade, thanks mainly to the revolution in information and communication technology (ICT). Raising the countrys infrastructure endowment to that of the regions middle-income countries could further boost annual growth by 3.5 percentage points per capita. Today, Malawis basic infrastructure indicators look relatively good when compared with other low-income countries in Africa, although the performance of that infrastructure could be significantly improved. Malawi is one of the few African countries to have already reached the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water, almost a decade ahead of the target. The private sector has made Global Management System (GSM) telephone signals widely available without public subsidy. A substantial road investment program has raised the average condition of the countrys road network, and a foundation for institutional reform has been laid in the ICT, power, and road transport sectors. Even if those inefficiencies could be eliminated, Malawi will still face an infrastructure funding gap of almost

Tanzania's infrastructure: a continental perspective

300 million a year. This could be lessened to

Africa - Underpowered : the state of the power sector in Sub-Saharan Africa

100 million by engaging in regional trade of electricity, using lower-cost supply modalities in water supply and sanitation, and adopting appropriate technologies for road sector development. As long as efficiency gains are captured and spending sustained at the levels of the recent past, the countrys infrastructure targets could be reached within 16 years.

Powering Africa: Meeting the financing and reform challenges☆

Infrastructure contributed 1.3 percentage points to Tanzanias annual per capital GDP growth during the 2000s. If the countrys infrastructure endowment were improved to the level of the African leader, Mauritius, annual per capita growth rates could increase by 3.4 percent. Tanzania has made great progress in reforming its trunk roads, improving the quality of the road network. The country has also seen significant gains in ICT networks, and has one of the most competitive domestic air transport sectors in Africa. The power sector poses Tanzanias most serious infrastructure challenge. Despite significant improvements in pricing and operational performance in recent years, inefficiency still absorbs about 1.4 percent of GDP. Moreover, due to heavy reliance on hydro-power the sector remains vulnerable to climate variability. The port of Dar es Salaam also suffers from performance problems as rapid traffic growth has increasingly exposed deficiencies in storage and access to the port. Poor access to safe water is another challenge, exacerbated by poor budget execution in the sector. Tanzania would need to invest

Kenya's infrastructure : a continental perspective

2.4 billion annually for 10 years to meet its infrastructure targets. Spending at that level would absorb just over 20 percent of the countrys GDP. Existing spending stands at

Scorecard for Subsidies: How Utility Subsidies Perform in Transition Economies

1.2 billion a year. Tanzania loses

Malawi's Infrastructure

0.5 billion each year to inefficiencies such as underpricing, undercollection of revenue, overstaffing, and lack of budget prioritization. But even if inefficiencies could be fully captured, an annual funding gap of