Power tariffs : caught between cost recovery and affordability

This is the first paper to build a comprehensive empirical picture of power pricing practices across Sub-Saharan Africa, based on a new database of tariff structures in 27 countries for the years 2004-2008. Using a variety of quantitative indicators, the paper evaluates the performance of electricity tariffs against four key policy objectives: recovery of historic power production costs, efficient signaling of future power production costs, affordability to low income households, and distributional equity. As regards cost recovery, 80 percent of the countries in the sample fully recover operating costs, while only around 30 percent of the countries are practicing full recovery of capital costs. However, due to the fact that future power development may be based on a shift toward more economic technologies than those available in the past, existing tariffs look as though they would be consistent with Long Run Marginal Costs in nearly 40 percent of countries and hence provide efficient pricing signals. As regards affordability, today's average effective tariffs are affordable for 90 percent of today's customers. However, they would only be affordable for 25 percent of households that remain unconnected to the grid. Tariffs consistent with full recovery of economic costs would be affordable for 70 percent of the population. As regards equity, the highly regressive patterns of access to power services, ensure that subsidies delivered through electricity tariffs are without exception also highly regressive in distributional incidence. The conclusion is that achieving all four of these policy objectives simultaneously is almost impossible in the context of the high-cost low-income environment that characterizes much of SSA today. Hence most countries find themselves caught between cost recovery and affordability.International Trade and Trade Rules,Energy Production and Transportation,Infrastructure Economics,Debt Markets,Trade Policy

Mine closure and its impact on the community : five years after mine closure in Romania, Russia and Ukraine

Against the backdrop of economic transition, several countries in Eastern Europe have undertaken far-reaching programs to restructure their coal sectors, which in the 1990s were in a state of deep crisis. One aspect of restructuring has been the closure of loss-making mines, which are often located in communities where the coal industry is the dominant employer, and the significant downsizing of the workforce. Mitigation efforts that are implemented at the time of mine closure (such as severance payments) are usually intended only for the laid-off workers. The authors examine the impact of mine closure on the entire community five years after mine closure in Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. Using quantitative and qualitative research methods and based on interviews with national, regional, and local experts, and members of the affected population, the authors describe the effect of mine closure and evaluate the various mitigation efforts that have been used by governments in such cases. They conclude with policy recommendations of broad relevance to programs of industrial restructuring in communities dominated by a single industry.Mining&Extractive Industry (Non-Energy),Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Health Promotion,Municipal Financial Management,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Mining&Extractive Industry (Non-Energy),Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies

Discovering Real (Homogenous) Social Groups in the Russian Society: Methods and Results

The article focuses on the problem of identifying real social groups in the contemporary Russian society. The data from all-Russian monitoring surveys are used to compare two social structure models obtained by alternative methods. One of the models is similar to that of the European sociological tradition based on a socio-professional classification. The other one has been obtained by applying the cluster analysis after having ranked the stratification criteria derived from the entropy analysis.stratification; social structure; social inequality; occupational classification; entropy analysis; cluster analysis; real social groups

Tanzania's Infrastructure: A Continental Perspective

Infrastructure contributed 1.3 percentage points to Tanzania's annual per capital GDP growth during the 2000s. If the country's infrastructure endowment were improved to the level of the African leader, Mauritius, annual per capita growth rates could increase by 3.4 percent. Tanzania has made great progress in reforming its trunk roads, improving the quality of the road network. The country has also seen significant gains in ICT networks, and has one of the most competitive domestic air transport sectors in Africa. The power sector poses Tanzania's most serious infrastructure challenge. Despite significant improvements in pricing and operational performance in recent years, inefficiency still absorbs about 1.4 percent of GDP. Moreover, due to heavy reliance on hydro-power the sector remains vulnerable to climate variability. The port of Dar es Salaam also suffers from performance problems as rapid traffic growth has increasingly exposed deficiencies in storage and access to the port. Poor access to safe water is another challenge, exacerbated by poor budget execution in the sector. Tanzania would need to invest $2.4 billion annually for 10 years to meet its infrastructure targets. Spending at that level would absorb just over 20 percent of the country's GDP. Existing spending stands at$1.2 billion a year. Tanzania loses $0.5 billion each year to inefficiencies such as underpricing, undercollection of revenue, overstaffing, and lack of budget prioritization. But even if inefficiencies could be fully captured, an annual funding gap of$0.7 billion would remain. That gap could be shrunk to $0.4 billion if lower-cost technologies were adopted and if regional power trade could be further developed

Malawi's infrastructure: a continental perspective

Infrastructure contributed 1.2 percentage points to the annual per capita growth of Malawi's gross domestic product (GDP) over the past decade, thanks mainly to the revolution in information and communication technology (ICT). Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries could further boost annual growth by 3.5 percentage points per capita. Today, Malawi's basic infrastructure indicators look relatively good when compared with other low-income countries in Africa, although the performance of that infrastructure could be significantly improved. Malawi is one of the few African countries to have already reached the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for water, almost a decade ahead of the target. The private sector has made Global Management System (GSM) telephone signals widely available without public subsidy. A substantial road investment program has raised the average condition of the country's road network, and a foundation for institutional reform has been laid in the ICT, power, and road transport sectors. Even if those inefficiencies could be eliminated, Malawi will still face an infrastructure funding gap of almost $300 million a year. This could be lessened to$100 million by engaging in regional trade of electricity, using lower-cost supply modalities in water supply and sanitation, and adopting appropriate technologies for road sector development. As long as efficiency gains are captured and spending sustained at the levels of the recent past, the country's infrastructure targets could be reached within 16 years. Document type: Boo