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A study of the economic value of the charitable sector, seeking to improve upon rudimentary evaluations of the sector in terms of its income. It demonstrates how much charity adds to the economy, and how much good economics can add to charity. The authors adapt techniques for "willingness-to-pay" and "willingness-to-accept" even in apparently intractable cases like that of the homeless. The text should be useful to those working in the charitable sector, for those researching it and for relevant government departments

A new paradigm for power sector reform emerged during the 1990s, under the influence of the Washington Consensus, and began to spread across the developing world. This approach advocated restructuring of national power utilities to create scope for competition, while delegating responsibilities to the private sector under a clear regulatory framework. After 25 years, few developing countries have managed to adopt the model in its entirety, while many others encountered political and economic challenges along the way. This book provides a comprehensive evaluation of developing country power sector reform, sifting the evidence of whether reforms have contributed to improved sector outcomes. It also examines to what extent the reform paradigm remains relevant to the new social and environmental policy agenda of the twenty-first century, and is capable of adaptation to emerging technological disruption.

Infrastructure has made a net contribution of around one percentage point to Nigeria's improved per capita growth performance in recent years, in spite of the fact that unreliable power supply held growth back. Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries could boost annual growth by around four percentage points. Nigeria has made important strides toward improving much of its infrastructure. Compared to many African peers, Nigeria has relatively advanced power, road, rail, and information and communications technology (ICT) networks that cover extensive areas of the nation's territory. In recent years, Nigeria has conducted several important infrastructure sector reforms. The ports sector has been converted to a landlord model, and terminal concessions now attract private investment on a scale unprecedented for Africa. The power sector is undergoing a restructuring, paving the way for performance improvements; the sector is finally on a path toward raising tariffs to recover a larger share of costs. Bold liberalization measures in the ICT sector have resulted in widespread, low-cost mobile services, Africa's most vibrant fixed-line sector, and major private investments in the development of a national fiber-optic backbone. A burgeoning domestic air transport sector has emerged, with strong private carriers that have rapidly attained regional significance.

Infrastructure has contributed significantly to the growth of West African economies during the past decade. In Sierra Leone, infrastructure added only around 0.51 percentage points to the per capita growth rate over 2003-07. Similarly to other countries in the region and the rest of the continent, the boost to historic growth came predominately from the ICT (Information and Telecommunications Technology) revolution while power-sector deficiencies and poor roads held back growth. After nine years of peace, economic activity is flourishing at every level in Sierra Leone. Political stability, high government accountability, good governance standards, and streamlined tax reform helped Sierra Leone to become a bright success story, turning the country into the easiest and quickest place to start business in West Africa. Sierra Leone's image in the eyes of investors is strengthened as the country ranked as one of the top five countries in Africa for investor protection. Looking ahead, the country faces a number of critical infrastructure challenges. Perhaps the most daunting of these challenges lies in the power sector, the poor state of which retards development of other sectors. Access to power is very low, at around 1 to 5 percent in urban areas, and is nonexistent in the countryside. The country's installed power-generation capacity is around 13 megawatts per million people, which is lower than what other low-income and fragile states have installed. The entire existing power infrastructure is concentrated in the western part of the country, and even with the functioning of the Bumbuna power plant, only half the suppressed demand for Freetown, let alone that for the rest of the country, is being met. Regardless of recent reduction in tariffs, Sierra Leoneans still pay some of the highest tariffs in Africa. In 2010, Sierra Leoneans paid three times as much for power as did residents of African countries that relied on hydropower. Making investments in more cost-effective power generation options is therefore an important strategic objective for Sierra Leone, without which further electrification will simply be unaffordable for the wider population.

Infrastructure contributed 0.6 percentage points to Ethiopia's annual per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the last decade. Raising the country's infrastructure endowment level to that of the region's middle-income countries could lift annual growth by an additional 3 percentage points. This will represent a significant boost over the growth performance of the mid-2000s, which averaged around 5 percent. The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has collected and analyzed extensive infrastructure data for more than 40 Sub-Saharan countries, including Ethiopia. The results are presented in reports on various infrastructure sectors Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), irrigation, power, transport, water and sanitation and policy areas, including investment needs, fiscal costs, and sector performance. This country report presents the key AICD findings for Ethiopia. This will allow its infrastructure situation to be benchmarked against that of other African nations that, like Ethiopia, are low-income countries, with particular emphasis on immediate regional neighbors in East Africa. Several methodological issues should be borne in mind. First, the cross country nature of the data collection creates an inevitable time lag. The period covered by the AICD runs from 2001 to 2006. Most technical data are presented for 2006 (or the most recent year available), while financial data typically are averaged over the available period to smooth out the effect of short term fluctuations. Second, cross country comparisons require standardization of the indicators and the analysis to ensure consistency. Therefore, some of the indicators may be slightly different from those that are routinely reported and discussed at the country level. During the 2000s, Ethiopia's annual economic growth has averaged 4.8 percent, compared with only 0.5 percent in the previous decade. Notwithstanding this improvement, current annual growth levels still fall short of the sustained 7 percent needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Improved structural and stabilization policies generated an estimated 4.2 percent of Ethiopia's improved per capita growth performance during the 2000s, and improvements in the country's infrastructure platform over that period contributed up to 0.6 percentage points to growth. This was due almost entirely to the introduction of mobile telephony in Ethiopia. Simulations suggest that if Ethiopia's infrastructure platform could be improved to the level of the African leader, Mauritius, annual per capita growth rates could increase by 3.8 percent. This potential impact would come equally from improvements to transport, power, and ICT infrastructure.

The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has gathered and analyzed extensive data on infrastructure in around 40 Sub-Saharan countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The results have been presented in reports covering different areas of infrastructure ICT, irrigation, power, transport, water and sanitation and different policy areas, including investment needs, fiscal costs, and sector performance. This report presents the key AICD findings for the DRC, allowing the country's infrastructure situation to be benchmarked against that of its African peers. Given that the DRC is a fragile state trying to catch up with other low-income countries (LICs) in the region, both fragile-state and LIC African benchmarks will be used to evaluate the DRC's situation. Detailed comparisons will also be made with immediate regional neighbors in Central Africa. Several methodological issues should be borne in mind. First, because of the cross-country nature of data collection, a time lag is inevitable. The period covered by the AICD runs from 2001 to 2006. Most technical data presented are for 2006 (or the most recent year available), while financial data are typically averaged over the available period to smooth out the effect of short-term fluctuations. Second, in order to make comparisons across countries, indicators had to be standardized to place the analysis on a consistent basis. This means that some of the indicators presented here may be slightly different from those that are routinely reported and discussed at the country level. During the period from 2001 to 2005, per capita economic growth in DRC was on average 2.1 percent higher than during the period from 1991 to 1995. Despite this improvement, growth levels, which oscillated between 4 and 8 percent in the early 2000s, still fell short of the sustained 7 percent per year needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Improved telecommunications infrastructure has been the main driver of this change, contributing 1.1 percentage points to the country's per capita growth rate. Deficiencies in power infrastructure, on the other hand, held back per capita growth by 0.25 percentage point over this period.

Africa's infrastructure : a time for transformation -- The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic -- Meeting Africa's infrastructure needs -- Closing Africa's funding gap -- Dealing with poverty and inequality -- Building sound institutions -- Facilitating urbanization -- Deepening regional integration -- Information and communication technologies : a boost for growth -- Power : catching up -- Transport : more than the sum of its parts -- Roads : broadening the agenda -- Railways : looking for traffic -- Ports and shipping : landlords needed -- Airports and air transport : the sky's the limit -- Water resources : a common interest -- Irrigation : tapping potential -- Water supply : hitting the target? -- Sanitation : moving up the ladder