The World Bank Research Observer is intended for anyone who has a professional interest in development. Observer articles are written to be accessible to nonspecialist readers; contributors examine key...
This note explores the Bangladesh experience in implementing the widespread use of a private operator model for building and operating rural piped water schemes. Since the early 1990s, the World Bank has...
South Africa occupies a central position in the global debate regarding the most effective policy instruments to accelerate and sustain private investment in renewable energy. In 2009, the government began...
To overcome huge shortfalls in access to infrastructure services, poor countries need much higher investment levels and more expertise to build, operate, and maintain infrastructure facilities. The private...
Rapid growth in project finance, driven by huge increases in liquidity, helped fuel the gains in private participation in infrastructure (PPI) in developing countries in the past decade. But when the financial...
In developing countries the global financial crisis is leading to serious difficulties for infrastructure projects with private participation. In some cases governments are responding by simplifying their...
In 2001-03 the municipal bond market in Mexico was among the most active in the developing world. Government officials had found a way to dramatically enhance the creditworthiness of local government debt...
This paper attempts to explain why some kinds of brownfield concessions do seem to be on the verge of extinction and how others have evolved into sturdier, more sustainable arrangements, sometimes by being...
Once expected to be the signature contract of private participation in infrastructure and for a time its fastest growing form, the brown field concession was hit hard by the Asian crisis and has never...
Over a two-year period, beginning in late 2004, the Nigerian federal government implemented one of the most ambitious port concessioning programs ever attempted. The success of this program resulted from...
In Africa it is becoming clear that the reasons for the shortage of infrastructure investment go beyond the need for policy and governance reforms. But the key problem is not a lack of funding, as might...
In Africa. many now seem to agree that developing infrastructure is critical for reducing poverty and promoting sustained economic growth, that the private sector has an essential contribution to make...
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the overwhelming need for infrastructure has motivated regional economic organizations to push for an ambitious agenda of private participation. But to begin solving Africa's infrastructure...
African officials have shown new interest in infrastructure projects involving private participation. But with so little experience with such projects, these officials often have limited knowledge about...