Drawing on the World Bank's Private Participation in Infrastructure Project Database, this Note provides an overview of private activity in infrastructure in developing countries between 1990 and 2000. Three main trends characterized that decade: Private activity in infrastructure grew each year...

In 1997 Gabon awarded the first real concession in Africa, under a contract that introduced coverage targets for expanding service to previously unconnected rural areas. SEEG, the new concessionaire, offers both water and electricity service, with the electricity business cross-subsidizing the...

In Bangladesh an education program aimed at teaching mothers how to prepare and use oral rehydration solution to treat diarrhea relied on output-based incentives to ensure that the teaching was effective. The program tied field workers' pay to fast-cycle feedback on performance against output...

In Peru private telecommunications operators bid for the minimum government subsidy to provide pay phone service to the poor in targeted rural areas. Part of the subsidy is paid on award, part once the equipment is installed, and the rest in semiannual installments for several years, contingent...

This note, based on the World Bank's Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) project database, reviews trends in infrastructure projects with private participation in low-income countries. Four main conclusions arise. Surprisingly, the proportion of countries with at least one project -...

Unlike the poor in many developing countries, those in Central and Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union, are highly connected to network utilities. During the early 1990s, it became clear that without subsidies, many households would have difficulty paying their utility bills. Governments...

Privatization of infrastructure services is often followed by stricter enforcement of quality standards, which raises costs, maintaining, or worsening the exclusion of the poor. The poor would get easier access to service, if the main provider was permitted to deviate from this uniform standard,...

Small-scale providers of infrastructure services, are proving to be more responsive than utilities, to needs of poor consumers. They might be delivering water services by tanker, transport services by minivan, or electricity through mini-grids, or household solar panels. They make their services...

In many developing countries, the regulation of infrastructure service standards is rigid, and makes services too expensive for the poor. The current wave of liberalization of infrastructure, is an opportunity to address this problem. Debate on expanding access under such reform, has so far...

Ports have become increasingly capital intensive. Economies of scale have led to larger, more specialized ships, and, competition between ports has started to grow. As a result, governments are reorganizing the way ports are run, and permitting more private ownership, and service delivery....