This paper examines the promise and challenge of infrastructure privatization in sub-Saharan Africa, with particular emphasis on power, telecommunications, water, rail, ports and airports. The paper places primary emphasis on mobilizing private investment in infrastructure. To realize the potential of infrastructure privatization in sub-Saharan Africa, four main challenges must be addressed: a) concerns over market size, affordability and payment risks; b) establishing adequate legal and regulatory frameworks; c) dealing with non commercial risks; and d) mobilizing local finance. The paper examines these four areas and gives elements of a future strategy for the World Bank Group.

Why is the private sector yet to take off in much sub-Saharan Africa? Drawing on a unique set of enterprise surveys, Vijaya Ramachandran and her co-authors identify the biggest obstacles: inadequate infrastructure (especially unreliable electricity and crumbing roads) and burdensome regulation. They then show how ethnic minorities dominate the private sector in many countries, inhibiting competition and demands for a better business environment, and thus impeding the emergence of an entrepreneurial middle class. Based on this careful diagnosis, the authors suggest investing in infrastructure and reforming regulation to lower the cost of doing business, and increasing the access to education of a broader-based business class that crosses ethnic divides. Book jacket.

"Many of the problems are related to difficulties in sustaining cost-covering user fees for these sectors. This study aims to distill the experience over the last 15 years. The main factors in the growth and subsequent decline are examined. The report assesses the impact that the private provision of infrastructure has had on service delivery and analyzes the consequences for other important goals. Main policy lessons are provided for governments that seek to ensure that the supply of infrastructure services does not become a bottleneck to growth."--BOOK JACKET.

Governments have long recognized the vital role that modern infrastructure services play in economic growth and poverty alleviation. For much of the post-Second World War period, most governments entrusted delivery of these services to state-owned monopolies. But in many developing countries, the results were disappointing. Public sector monopolies were plagued by inefficiency. Many were strapped for resources because governments succumbed to populist pressures to hold prices below costs. Fiscal pressures, and the success of the pioneers of the privatization of infrastructure services, provided governments with a new paradigm. Many governments sought to involve the private sector in the provision and financing of infrastructure services. The shift to the private provision that occurred during the 1990s was much more rapid and widespread than had been anticipated at the start of the decade. By 2001, developing countries had seen over $755 billion of investment flows in nearly 2500 infrastructure projects. However, these flows peaked in 1997, and have fallen more or less steadily ever since. These declines have been accompanied by high profile cancellations or renegotiations of some projects, a reduction in investor appetite for these activities and, in some parts of the world, a shift in public opinion against the private provision of infrastructure services. The current sense of disillusionment stands in stark contrast to what should in retrospect be surprise at the spectacular growth of private infrastructure during the 1990s.

This booklet contains the Overview as well as a list of contents from the forthcoming book Africa's Infrastructure: A time for Transformation.

In the past, some insightful appraisal of public policy in line with the primary infrastructure sectors globally, has agitated the quest for desired reform and expectations in Africa as a continent. In conformity, great inroads have been made in the telecommunication sector, which raises the issue of a gap between the suitability of prescribed policy and the country's specific institutional frameworks. Africa's diverse experience and the exceptional socioeconomic circumstance is such that policy preconditions that are imperative for successful liberalization and privatization are hardly met. Therefore, this study evaluates privatization policy choice by appraising the private sector investment participation in infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa in view of the fact that there is reliable knowledge around the world from which lessons can be drawn from. Infrastructure privatization is essentially a basic means to an end, and not ideally an end in itself, given its main objective is to perpetuate an efficient sector that delivers quality service. These can be achieved in the background of a suitable market mechanism that is well structured with a properly defined regulatory system.

"After the conflict ended in Angola, the country was faced with development challenges in economic and social conditions. The Government needed direction and reforms to encourage private sector participation to meet Angola's vast infrastructure needs in electricity and gas, water and sanitation, transport, and telecommunications. Private Solutions for Infrastructure in Angola provides an objective assessment of Angola's general environment for private sector participation in infrastructure. The main purpose of the book is to assist the Government of Angola in developing policies and a framework for the promotion of private participation in the rebuilding and development of the country's infrastructure. This book focuses on maximizing the role and contribution of the private sector in infrastructure and it analyzes and documents the barriers, opportunities, and measures to promote private participation in infrastructure over the period 2005-2020. The book also provides a summary of the action plan of the short, medium, and long-term steps to facilitate private sector participation."