[DEBATE] : PSI - UNDP Says African Privatisation Fails

[Tony Avirgan]

Privatising Basic Utilities in Sub-Saharan Africa: The MDG Impact


The UNDP has published a policy research brief which draws on the
findings of a UNDP-supported book, Privatization and Alternative Public
Sector Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bayliss and Fine, forthcoming). It
analyses the effects of privatisation on the delivery of water and
electricity. Its chief conclusion is that privatisation has been a
widespread failure. This has hampered progress on the MDGs for both
water and sanitation, and on many other MDGs dependent on energy.
Privatisation has failed on several counts. Contrary to expectations,
private investors have shied away from investing in such utilities in
the region, so it has been costly for governments to motivate them to
invest. A dramatic scaling up of both external and domestic resources
will be needed to finance more extensive public investment in these
sectors, an approach consistent with the current priority of adopting
more ambitious MDG-based development strategies in the region. The
research brief is available on
http://www.undp-povertycentre.org/pub/IPCPolicyResearchBrief003.pdf.

 

 

Tony Avirgan

Global Policy Network

www.gpn.org <http://www.gpn.org/> 

Economic Policy Institute

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