With urban and especially periurban populations set to grow at unprecedented rates in Africa, and service coverage continuing to lag, governments and donors have begun to recognize that small-scale providers have an increasingly critical role to play. They have also begun to focus on the...

This paper summarizes the key findings and conclusions of a literature review of small-scale private service providers (SPSPs) of water supply and electricity conducted over a six-month period in 2003. It draws on more than 400 documents-including journals, articles, reports, case studies and...

This paper summarizes the key findings and conclusions of a literature review of small-scale private service providers (SPSPs) of water supply and electricity conducted over a six-month period in 2003. It draws on more than 400 documents - including journals, articles, reports, case studies and...

"This paper summarizes the key findings and conclusions of a literature review of small-scale private service providers (SPSPs) of water supply and electricity conducted over a six-month period in 2003. It draws on more than 400 documents-including journals, articles, reports, case studies and...

Programs to reform urban utilities and to engage the private sector have tended to focus on large cities and on transactions with large foreign private operators. This is changing, as smaller towns and cities are growing rapidly in many developing countries. Concurrently, decentralization is...

In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the number of towns and their populations are expected to double within 15 years, and again within 30. Already, one-third of Africans and Asians live in towns of 2,000 to 200,000 people. This rapid urbanization makes improving water supply and sanitation...

We assembled a large panel of project-level technical and financial data as well as country-level economic, institutional, political, and governance variables to assess the determinants of private financing of infrastructure in emerging markets and developing economies. Controlling for economic...

Governments must decide how to allocate limited resources for infrastructure development, particularly since financing gaps have been projected for the coming decades. Social cost-benefit analysis provides sound project appraisal and, when systematically applied, a basis for prioritization. In...

Learning from experience to improve future infrastructure public-private partnerships is a focal issue for policy makers, financiers, implementers, and private sector stakeholders. An extensive body of case studies and "lessons learned" aims to improve the likelihood of success and attempts to...

This paper sets forth the history and policies underlying the debate over proxy access - a system that would permit shareholders meeting certain criteria to include a director candidate directly on a corporations ballot. Such a system, it is argued, would reduce the cost burden associated with...