Africa lags well behind other developing regions in infrastructure access. The limited gains of the 1990s have not increased much in the 2000s. There is clear evidence that many countries are failing to expand services fast enough to keep ahead of rapid demographic growth and even faster...

Household surveys have long been used to estimate poverty and inequality trends, as well as trends in education and health indicators, but they have not been used to the same extent to assess trends in the access to or coverage of modern infrastructure services. In this paper, we use Demographic...

A majority of sub-Saharan Africa s population is not connected to electricity and piped water networks, and even in urban areas coverage is low. Lack of network coverage may be due to demand or supply-side factors. Some households may live in areas where access to piped water and electricity is...

Water and sanitation utilities in Africa operate in a high-cost environment. They also have a mandate to at least partially recover their costs of operations and maintenance (O&M). As a result, water tariffs are higher than in other regions of the world. The increasing block tariff (IBT) is the...

With only 56 percent of the population enjoying access to safe water, Sub-Saharan Africa lags behind other regions in terms of access to improved water sources. Based on present trends, it appears that the region is unlikely to meet the target of 75 percent access to improved water by 2015, as...

A recent study for sub-Saharan Africa by Banerjee et al. (2007) uses Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) from 22 countries that have conducted at least two such surveys between 1990 and 2005 in order to collect comparable information across countries on access to modern and alternative...

In many sub-Saharan African countries household surveys are well designed to measure consumption and poverty as well as human development outcomes (especially in education and health) and access to basic infrastructure. But detailed information on the sources of income and the livelihoods of...

Market share estimates—typically in the 30 percent to 40 percent range—are frequently wielded as the most concrete evidence of faith-inspired activity and impact in the area of health care provision in Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, there are few speeches, reports, or articles that do not make...

Faith-inspired institutions (FIIs) play an important role in improving health care in many African countries through the delivery of facility-based care, training of the health workforce, involvement in community-based activities, and participation in health promotion campaigns. FIIs represent a...

What is the share of students attending faith-inspired schools (FISs) in Africa? Do FISs reach the poor in priority? How much do they cost for households? And how do FISs compare with public schools and private secular schools in these areas? This article provides tentative answers to these...