Infrastructure for Poor People

Access to basic infrastructure services by poor people remains a problem even as governments of many developing countries have privatized these services. Many poor people continue to lack access to safe water and sanitation, modern sources of energy, and electronic means of communication. This book provides guidance on how to structure private infrastructure reforms to maximize access. The book finds that privatization can help increase access, but that ensuring it does lead to improvements requires policymakers to pay attention to the details of market design and regulation. This includes transferring real risk from the government to the private sector, permitting competition wherever possible, protecting poor people from excessively high pricing, and establishing credible policies about who will pay for infrastructure services.