DEVELOPMENT: Not Enough Infrastructure, World Bank Warns

By Emad Mekay Reprint | | Print |

Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON, Feb 20 2002 (IPS) - The World Bank appealed Tuesday for major, immediate infrastructure investments.

“The needs are vast, from the slums to the remote countryside,” said James Wolfensohn, the bank’s president.

According to the lending agency, some 1.2 billion people lack access to safe potable water, making them vulnerable to water- borne illness. Twice as many lack adequate sanitation.

The Washington-based institution also said that an estimated 2.5 billion people remain without access to modern energy, meaning they lack light for learning and must rely on heating and cooking fuels tied to respiratory illness.

“Infrastructure poor” countries, the Bank said, face an even grimmer situation in terms of roads and other public infrastructure. It said 900 million rural dwellers in developing countries live without reliable all-season roads, meaning they are denied access to markets, employment, schools, and clinics.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Bank, less than eight percent of the population is connected to the power grid and between 10 percent and 75 percent; depending on the country, live without all-season road access within two kilometres of their homes.

Because of the shortage of roads in Africa, “the daily transport effort of a typical adult woman is equivalent to carrying a load of 20 kilograms for 1.4-5.3 kilometres-and prevents them from participating in political processes,” the Bank said.

In Latin America, 125 million people lack access to safe water, 200 million live without adequate sanitation, and about 70 million still lack access to modern energy supplies.

The Bank said infrastructure shortfalls continue to grow in line with population growth in low-income countries and this is especially so in cities.

Of the two billion people who will be added to the developing world’s population by the year 2025, it added, more than 90 percent will live in urban areas. These will double in size.

The Bank said that a hike in official development assistance, coupled with better private sector investment, is needed to finance infrastructure and help meet the international community’s so-called Millennium Development Goals.

“Rich-country donors must support this and other urgent needs by doubling official development assistance. Currently, rich countries spend seven times as much on agricultural subsidies as they do on aid,” said Wolfensohn.

The Bank’s appeal on behalf of infrastructure projects – the bedrock of its business until the advent of “structural adjustment” and other policy-based lending – comes in advance of the Mar. 18-22 U.N. International Conference on Financing for Development, to be held in Monterrey, Mexico.

It also comes as the lender itself faces a possible drain on funding for its soft-loan arm, the International Development Agency (IDA). The United States, the Bank’s biggest and most influential shareholder, long has been a difficult contributor to IDA and has begun to express a preference for grants over loans.

“Unless the world’s poor – from South Asia to Latin America to Sub- Saharan Africa – gain greater access to transport, electricity, water and telecommunications, the likelihood of achieving the internationally agreed goal of cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015 will remain in serious doubt,” the Bank said in its statement.

It highlighted its own work to fight “infrastructure poverty”, including support of such initiatives as the Cities Alliance, a joint effort with the United Nations that seeks to improve living conditions for the urban poor over the next two decades.

The Bank also touted its water and sanitation programmes and Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme, a global joint effort with the U.N. Development Programme aimed at providing governments with technology transfer and policy advice on energy development.