What are the linkages between rural infrastructure investments and household welfare? In the past most of the evaluations to assess the effectiveness of a project focused on physical outputs and success of project implementation. In recent years, more attention has been given to the impact of investments, particularly its effect on the poor, both in economic and noneconomic terms. Songco presents findings from a survey of the existing literature on such impacts.Although evidence exists for improved household welfare from rural infrastructure investment, little evidence was found of studies that provided concrete linkages between specific investments in rural infrastructure and increased welfare of the rural poor. This is due in part to the complexity, and oftentimes the concurrent nature of interventions, that make attributing welfare improvements to a particular project virtually impossible.The evidence is presented in this three-part paper. Part I gives examples of past and current attempts to assess the impact of rural infrastructure projects and provides suggestions for future evaluations. Part II discusses in detail some observed economic and noneconomic impacts on the poor from different rural infrastructure interventions. Part III presents lessons learned from the literature on how to maximize the impact of rural infrastructure interventions on household welfare. Specific project and country examples from the literature and new data from a recent qualitative study in Vietnam are presented as evidence for and illustration of key ideas and issues.This paper - a product of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit, East Asia and Pacific Region - is part of a larger effort in the region to evaluate the welfare impact of investments. The author may be contacted at [email protected].

"Rural infrastructure is critical to both economic and social development. Its absence thwarts growth and, typically, the poor are those hurt the most. The purpose of this paper is to serve as a basis for knowledge management on rural infrastructure." In the 1970s, the primary, if not the unique, objective of rural infrastructure lending was to get rural infrastructure built. However, the institutional aspects of how this infrastructure was to be built, and later how it would be operated and maintained, did not receive much attention. Only recently has poverty alleviation through employment creation become an explicit objective of rural infrastructure investments. This review tracks the poverty alleviation objective of rural infrastructure projects using three criteria: 1. whether poverty was an explicit criterion in the selection of specific sub-projects; 2. whether poverty was addressed in the pricing of rural infrastructure services; and 3. whether poverty was addressed through the creation of employment.

A change in the transport sector's current approach to selecting rural road investments is warranted. A proposed approach builds on some of the poverty-focused "hybrid" methods found in recent rural road appraisals, recognizing that an important share of the benefits to the poor from rural roads cannot be measured in monetary terms.

Originally published in 1988, this is a collection of symposium papers examining the link between public infrastructure and economic growth. Subjects covered include Economic theories of infrastructure Decision-making, Issues in the supply of Public infrastructure, Life cycle behaviour and the demand for infrastructure, limitations, financial sources and budgeting, the role of the local and federal government, different models and case studies in South Carolina, North Dakota, and the Pennsylvania Agricultural Access Program

A change in the transport sector's current approach to selecting rural road investments is warranted. A proposed approach builds on some of the poverty-focused hybrid methods found in recent rural road appraisals-recognizing that an important share of the benefits to the poor from rural roads cannot be measured in monetary terms.Van de Walle examines how rural road investment projects should be selected and appraised when the objective is poverty reduction. After critically reviewing past and current practices, van de Walle develops an operational approach grounded in a public economics framework in which concerns of equity and efficiency are inseparable, information is incomplete in important ways, and resources are limited. She addresses a key problem: that an important share of the benefits to the poor from rural roads cannot be measured in monetary terms.The selection formula she proposes aims to identify places where poverty and economic potential are high and access is low. She illustrates the method using data for and project experience in Vietnam.Among the advantages of proceeding as outlined in her proposal: This approach holds the hope of building capacity and is participatory; it extracts local information that may not be readily available to the central government; and it appears to be feasible because it relies on local authorities participating in the appraisal of subprojects.This paper - a product of Public Economics, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to study the impact of transport and other physical infrastructure on poverty. Copies of the paper are available free from the World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433. The author may be contacted at [email protected].