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Rethinking Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean: Spending Better to Achieve More (Directions in Development)

Posted By: lengen
Rethinking Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean: Spending Better to Achieve More (Directions in Development)

Rethinking Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean: Spending Better to Achieve More (Directions in Development) by The World Bank
English | Aug. 9, 2017 | ISBN: 1464811016 | 137 Pages | PDF | 4 MB

Infrastructure power, water, sanitation, transport, flood protection, and telecommunications is essential for growth, poverty alleviation, social inclusion, resilience, and environmental sustainability. Despite significant investment, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) does not have the infrastructure it needs or deserves, given its income.
Although many argue that the solution to the infrastructure gap is to spend more, Rethinking Infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean: Spending Better to Achieve More takes a different approach and considers how to spend more wisely and efficiently on essential services.
The authors advocate beginning with a careful discussion of individual countries' development priorities, goals, and fiscal policies and ask three questions:
What should LAC countries' goals be?
How can these goals be achieved as cost-effectively as possible?
Who should pay to reach these goals?
Benchmarking the region in terms of infrastructure services reveals clear strengths and weaknesses. Access to water and electricity is relatively good, with the potential for the region s electricity sector to drive competitive advantage. In contrast, transport and sanitation are key areas for further development. The authors also identify and analyze some of the emerging challenges for the region climate change, changing demand from a growing middle class, and urbanization that will exert increasing pressure on infrastructure and policy makers alike.
Improving the region's infrastructure performance in the context of tight fiscal space will require spending better on well-identified priorities. Unlike most infrastructure diagnostics, this publication argues that much of what is needed lies outside of the infrastructure sector in the form of broader government issues from competition policy to budgeting rules that no longer solely focus on controlling cash expenditures. The authors find that sector reforms are required as well, and that traditional recommendations continue to apply regarding independent, well-performing regulators and better corporate governance. They highlight the critical importance of cost recovery, where feasible and desirable, as the basis for future commercial finance of infrastructure services. LAC has the means and potential to do better and it can do so by spending more efficiently on the right things.