Sub-Saharan Africa's Infrastructure Gaps: A Scorecard

Table 2.2 depicts a scorecard of Sub-Saharan Africa's infrastructure gaps in terms of quantity, quality, and access, as well as subregions and selected countries. The scorecard summarizes the information presented in figures 2.1 through 2.17. It captures the gap between the region, income groups, or percentile of the regional distribution vis-à-vis the top decile of the world excluding countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. This gap is represented by the ratio of the infrastructure measure in Sub-Saharan Africa vis-à-vis the equivalent measure for the top decile of the rest of the world. In this context, the regions, income groups, and countries in brown represent those whose ratio is lower than 0.25-that is, their infrastructure gap is greater than 75 percent. These are the most lagging areas in infrastructure provision. We denote in yellow those areas with a ratio between 0.25 and 0.5 (a gap that is greater than 50 percent but lower than 75 percent). Those with an infrastructure ratio relative to the benchmark between 0.5 and 0.75 are represented in light green, whereas those with a ratio greater than 0.75 (that is, a gap less than 25 percent) are depicted in dark green.

When looking at the region as a whole (as captured by the median across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa) and its different groups classified by income level, all of them (except UMCs) have a gap that exceeds 75 percent relative to the top decile of the world sample in energy-generating capacity as well as road density and quality (table 2.2, panel A). For telecommunications penetration, the gap for most regions exceeds 50 percent-except for UMCs (with a gap lower than 10 percent). In the case of total access to improved water sources, the gap in Sub-Saharan Africa vis-à-vis the benchmark is lower than 50 percent-and it is even lower than 10 percent for UMCs in the region. Qualitatively, these gaps hold for rural access to improved sources of water.

Table 2.2, panel B, shows the gap for the best and worst performers in the region (relative to the top 10 percent of the world distribution), as approximated by the top decile, top quartile, bottom quartile, and bottom decile of the Sub-Saharan Africa distribution. For the bottom percentiles of the distribution (10th and 25th percentiles), the gap in quantity and quality of infrastructure is greater than 75 percent-regardless of the infrastructure sector. The same holds for access to electricity and access to sanitation. The gaps for the bottom percentiles are not as large in access to safe water. For the best performers in the region (75th and 90th percentiles), the performance is still dismal in electric power-generating capacity. For the top decile of the distribution in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a narrow gap in telecommunications penetration (about 20 percent), overall access to electricity, and access to water. The gaps in energy quality and access to sanitation facilities are moderate.

TABLE 2.2: Infrastructure Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scorecard

Color representation: Brown represents a ratio lower than 0.25, yellow represents a ratio between 0.25 and 0.5, light green represents a ratio between 0.5 and 0.75, and dark green represents a ratio greater than 0.75.

Quantity: Telecom is fixed and mobile lines per 1,000 workers (in logs), Energy is electricity-generating capacity per 1,000 workers (in logs), and Transport is length of the road network in km. per sq. km (in logs). Quality: Energy is electric power transmission and distribution losses (% of output in logs), and Transport is the share of paved roads (% total in logs). Access: Energy is access to electricity (% of population in logs), Water is improved water sources (% of population in logs), and Sanitation is improved sanitation facilities (% of population in logs).

LIC = low-income countries; LMC = lower-middle-income countries; SSA = Sub-Saharan Africa; UMC = upper-middle-income countries