The infrastructure network in Sub-Saharan Africa remains poor on average, despite recent government efforts to improve it. This subsection assesses the patterns of infrastructure stocks and their accumulation across countries in the region. It updates the benchmarking analysis of infrastructure in the region conducted by Calderon and Serven (2010), and confirms the continuing existence of a wide gap in infrastructure provision between Sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions.
Benchmarking the performance of infrastructure sectors in the region's countries involves the assessment of economic infrastructure across three dimensions: quantity, quality, and access. To place the infrastructure trends in Sub-Saharan Africa in context, the report uses a comparative perspective. First, the analysis uses different comparator regions, namely, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and East Asia and the Pacific. Second, it examines infrastructure trends across income groups in the region-including LICs, LMCs, and UMCs. The full list of countries is presented in the appendix.
The evolution of infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa is evaluated for different sectors, namely, telecommunications, energy, transport, and water and sanitation. Within each of these sectors, and to the extent that data permit, the quantity, quality, and access dimensions are examined. Time series availability and country coverage across the different indicators of infrastructure are heterogeneous. Table 2.1 summarizes the indicators that are used to examine the performance of infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa.
TABLE 2.1: Indicators of Infrastructure Performance
Dimension | Telecommunications | Energy | Transport | Water and Sanitation |
Quantity | Fixed telephone and mobile cellular subscriptions per capita Internet users Fixed broadband subscriptions | Total electricity-generating capacity per capita | -Total road length -Total railroad length -Total road and railroad length |
|
Quality | International Internet bandwidth Number of secure servers | -Energy quality (%) -WEF quality of power supply | -Paved roads (%) -WEF quality of roads -WEF quality of railroads |
|
Access |
| Access to electricity (% people) |
| Access to safe water (% people) Access to sanitation facilities (% people) |
Sources: See the appendix.
Note: WEF = World Economic Forum.