This newsletter looks at Output-based aid (OBA) as it pertains to the telecommunication sector of Uganda. Specifically, how to bring communication services to the rural areas. The newsletter touches on how the structure and financing was set, how the bidding process was set up, subsidies, the...

This newsletter looks at how Bolivia is implementing an innovative public-private approach to increase rural electricity access to extremely remote areas via Solar Home Systems (SHS) and how Novel Medium-term Service Contracts (MSCs) balance the Government's wish for sustainable service and...

This newsletter describes how the Argentine Maternal-Child Health Insurance Program uses an interesting approach of combining output-based contracting with an output-based funding mechanism. Particularly innovative is the combination of enrollment numbers and performance indicators as a way to...

The government of Senegal has made rural electrification a priority, recognizing its importance in reducing poverty and redressing development imbalances. A new program that combines output-based aid (OBA) subsidies with technology neutral competitive bidding is seen as more promising. This...

Out-based aid (OBA) involves the use of explicit, performance-based subsidies to deliver public services such as water and sanitation. It is used to fund the gap between people's willingness or ability to pay for a service whose delivery is deemed worth subsidizing and the cost of providing that...

The Philippines has introduced an output-based aid (OBA) subsidy scheme to improve electricity supply on remote islands as a way to enhance living standards in the poor communities there. The subsidy, to come from a national fund financed by a surcharge on all electricity users, will be paid to...

To obtain market financing for an infrastructure project, a private operator needs to be able to provide potential investors assurance that revenue flows to the project will be reliable. Where those revenue flows consist in part of government output-based aid (OBA) subsidy payments, providing...

Paraguay's aguateros-small private water companies- form an important part of the water sector, serving about 9 percent of the total population (or about 17 percent of those with piped water supply). But until recently they operated only in urban areas, where water resources are abundant, and...

Despite Chad's recent debut as an oil exporter, its people rank among the world's poorest. Large parts of the country are left in extreme isolation by the lack of a backbone road network that is passable year-round. To tackle the poor internal integration, the government formulated the National...

The Philippines has been unable to meet its growing demand for adequate water services. Indeed, the share of the population with access to water has fallen, particularly among the poor, as a result of frequent political turnover, fragmented regulatory oversight, and lack of coordination among...