What Is It?

Basic installations that support a community's day to day life and economic activity. Includes roads, electricity, water systems, telecom services, and public transportation.

Many of the things we take for granted, such as listening to the radio, surfing the web, riding the subway, and drinking clean water stem from good, functioning infrastructures. Life would be very different, and probably quite uncomfortable, without these things.

But infrastructure is important for more than just daily comforts. It plays a key role in reducing poverty. It increases productivity and improves the quality of life for a community. Roads transport people to markets, schools, and health care facilities. Safe water is essential for life and health. Reliable electricity saves businesses and consumers from investing in expensive backup systems or more costly alternatives, and spares rural women and children from the laborious task of collecting firewood. Widely available and affordable telecommunications and transportation services can generate employment and advance economic growth.

Here are just a few examples of the impact of infrastructure development on a community:

• In India, roads alone account for 7% of the growth in total output of the rural areas.
• In Costa Rica, a rural electrification project increased the number of major businesses from 15 to 86.
• A recent rural road project in Morocco not only increased agricultural production, but also tripled the enrollment of girls in primary schools. And the use of health care facilities nearly doubled.

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Why Should I Care?

Not Everyone is Benefiting

In recent years, there have been huge improvements in infrastructure around the world. Today, we are better connected than ever, with more roads, better transport systems, fast internet connections, and incredible mobile phone technology. For many of us, electricity and safe drinking water are not luxuries, but just facts of life.

But these developments have not included everyone. Far too many people around the world still live without strong infrastructures. This is a major obstacle to reducing poverty, and often poses serious health risks.

• Some 2 billion people have no access to electricity at all.
• 1.1 billion people lack access to safe water, roughly one-sixth of the world?s population. And 2.4 billion or 40% of the world?s people lack access to adequate sanitation services.
• Water and sanitation-related illnesses, including diarrhoeal diseases, kill 1.6 million children every year.
• High-income economies on average use 10 times as much energy (a finite resource) per capita as low-income economies.
• The use of mobile phones in Europe and Central Asia has doubled each year between 1995 and 2001. However, in some economies millions still face a long wait for a mainline connection.

Environmental Damage

While strong infrastructures contribute tremendously to the quality of life, it is important that development is environmentally sustainable, otherwise the cost can be high. Building roads, cities and transport systems has, unfortunately, wreaked havoc on our environment. Energy emissions have increased, as have urban congestion, air pollution, and traffic congestion.

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What Is the International Community Doing?

In the last decade, infrastructure investment in developing countries fell significantly. Governments in the developing world are investing too little in infrastructure, and the private sector has not been able to fill the gap, although it continues to be a very important contributor to global infrastructure development. In fact, in developing countries, the private sector accounts for approximately 20% of total annual infrastructure investment.

Recognizing the importance of infrastructure for economic progress, the Bank launched the Infrastructure Action Plan (pdf) in 2003, with the goal of renewing its focus on infrastructure investment in order to meet its development goals. Total Bank lending for infrastructure in 2005 reached over $7.4 billion (33% of total Bank lending).

International development organizations can have a stronger impact when working together, and there are several examples of such collaborations among the Bank, regional development banks, donors and other institutions such as the EU. This has been especially true with regional infrastructure projects, which require close collaboration given their complexity and scale. The World Bank is currently working with the Asian Development Bank in the Bangladesh power sector, and with the African Development Bank on a model collaboration in the water sector. The Bank has also partnered with the Inter-American Development Bank for the design and financing of rural roads, road management, and urban transport programs in Peru.

Read more about what international organizations are doing for infrastructure around the world.

• The World Bank
• The African Development Bank
• The Inter-American Development Bank
• The Asian Development Bank
• European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

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What Can I Do?

Learn the facts. Check out the websites listed above to see the problems associated with infrastructure around the world. Write about these issues for your local youth newspaper, and encourage other young people to educate themselves about these things.

Conserve water and energy. In many parts of the world, both are precious commodities, and you can help by avoiding overuse and wastage.

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