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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, today's average effective tariffs are affordable for 90 percent of today's 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.

Affordability --- Cost recovery --- Cross-subsidization --- Debt Markets --- Energy --- Energy Production and Transportation --- Increasing block tariffs --- Infrastructure Economics --- International Trade and Trade Rules --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Power tariffs --- Trade Policy

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This paper provides a methodological tool to support the collection and preparation of standardized, comprehensive data regarding public spending on infrastructure services that can be rigorously compared across countries. Infrastructure is defined to cover six sectors: irrigation, energy (primarily power), transport, communication, wastewater management, and water supply. The guide is designed to provide a much richer and more complete measurement of infrastructure spending than the limited highly aggregated data currently available through the IMF Government Financial Statistics. Originally developed for Africa, the methodology is relevant and readily applicable to any developing country. With the aim of being as comprehensive as possible, the methodology covers central and sub-national government expenditures, non-budgetary vehicles (such as road funds), state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and public-private partnerships (PPPs). While the methodology focuses on collecting quantitative data on the level and composition of spending, this is complemented with qualitative data that provides the institutional context. Importantly, the methodology allows for cross-classification of infrastructure spending by purpose (power, roads, etc) and by function (operational versus capital spending). This guide provides practical guidance - including concepts, definitions, and classifications - for each of the three stages of work, namely: (i) pre-field, (ii) field, and (iii) back office.

Banks & Banking Reform --- Debt Markets --- Gross domestic products --- Infrastructure Economics and Finance --- Institutional mapping --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Public expenditure --- Public Sector Economics --- Public Sector Expenditure Policy --- Spending on public infrastructure --- State owned enterprises --- Transport Economics Policy & Planning

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Improvements in infrastructure in all parts of Sudan in recent years have had a strong impact on per capita growth, contributing 1.7 percentage points. Consistent with trends in other countries, the information and communication (ICT) revolution that swept Africa contributed the most to Sudan. Raising the infrastructure endowment of all parts of Sudan to that of the region's best performer, Mauritius, could boosts annual growth by about 3.5 percentage points. Sudan has invested heavily in infrastructure in recent years, with some notable achievements. Power generation capacity tripled in just a few years, rising from around 800 megawatts (MW) in 2005 to 2,687MW in 2007, with a shift toward hydropower. Nevertheless, service reliability remains an issue. In ICT, Sudan has made enormous strides in liberalizing the sector and as a result has attracted significant private capital. Mobile penetration soared from less than 1 percent in 2000 to 33 percent in 2009. Recent connectivity to an undersea fiber-optic cable has led to expansions in access, improvements in quality, and reduction in prices. Looking ahead, Sudan's most pressing infrastructure challenges lie in the water and transport sectors. Sudan's infrastructure development has so far had a national focus, and there is much that remains to be done to achieve greater regional integration. While internal road corridors are developed, connectivity with neighbors is largely absent. Sudan has a natural gateway to the sea through Port Sudan but the port's performance is severely hindered by long dwell times, high costs, and capacity constraints. Looking further ahead, Sudan has the potential to be a major hydropower exporter if additional capacity could be developed and transmission links with neighboring Nile Basin countries strengthened.

Administrative Costs --- Carbon Emissions --- Cost Recovery --- E-Business --- Electricity --- Energy --- Energy Production and Transportation --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Fuels --- Gross Domestic Product --- Infrastructure Economics --- Infrastructure Economics and Finance --- Infrastructure Investment --- Innovation --- Mobile Communications --- Ports --- Power Sector --- Private Investment --- Private Sector --- Private Sector Development --- Productivity --- Public Sector --- Roads --- Sanitation --- Traffic Volumes --- Transport --- Transport Costs --- Transport Economics Policy and Planning --- Vehicles --- Water Utilities

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Infrastructure contributed 1.3 percentage points to Burkina Faso's annual per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past decade, much of it due to improvements in information and communication technology (ICT). Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries (MICs) could boost annual growth by more than 3 percentage points per capita. Burkina Faso has made significant progress developing its infrastructure in recent years, especially in the ICT sector. The country has also moved forward in the areas of road maintenance and water and sanitation, but still faces challenges in these sectors, as well as in the electricity sector. As of 2007, Burkina Faso faced an annual infrastructure funding gap of USD 165 million per year, or 4 percent of GDP. That gap could be cut in half by the adoption of more appropriate technologies to meet infrastructure targets in the transport and the water and sanitation sectors. Even if Burkina Faso were unable to increase infrastructure spending or otherwise close the infrastructure funding gap, simply by moving from a 10- to 18-year horizon the country could address its efficiency gap and meet the posited infrastructure targets.

Annual infrastructure funding gap --- E-Business --- Energy Production and Transportation --- Information and communication technology --- Infrastructure Economics --- Infrastructure Economics and Finance --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Middle-income countries --- Per capita gross domestic product --- Road maintenance --- Town Water Supply and Sanitation --- Transport Economics Policy & Planning

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This study is a product of the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD), a project designed to expand the world's 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 solid empirical foundation for prioritizing investments and designing policy reforms in Africa's infrastructure sectors. The AICD is based on an unprecedented effort to collect detailed economic and technical data on African infrastructure. The project has produced a series of original reports on public expenditure, spending needs, and sector performance in each of the main infrastructure sectors, including energy, information and communication technologies, irrigation, transport, and water and sanitation. This report presents the key AICD findings for Mozambique, allowing the country's infrastructure situation to be benchmarked against that of its African peers. Given that Mozambique is poor but stable country, two sets of African benchmarks will be used to evaluate its situation: those for non fragile Low Income Countries (LICs) and those for Middle-Income Countries (MICs). Detailed comparisons will also be made with immediate regional neighbors in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Airports --- Canals --- Capital Costs --- Coal --- Cost Recovery --- Dams --- Discount Rate --- Electricity --- Energy --- Energy Production and Transportation --- Energy Supply --- Engineering --- Floods --- Gross Domestic Product --- Hydropower --- Infrastructure Economics --- Infrastructure Economics and Finance --- Infrastructure Finance --- Irrigation --- Minerals --- Mortality Rate --- Natural Resources --- Piped Water --- Population Density --- Population Growth --- Power Generation --- Power Sector --- Public Sector --- Railways --- Rainfall --- Roads --- Runoff --- Sanitation --- Surface Water --- Town Water Supply and Sanitation --- Transport --- Urban Areas --- Vehicles --- Water Supply and Sanitation --- Water Utilities