Suchergebnisse

Despite general economic decline and power supply deficiencies, infrastructure made a modest net contribution of less than half a percentage point to Zimbabwe's improved per capita growth performance in recent years. Raising the country's infrastructure endowment to that of the region's middle-income countries could boost annual growth by about 2.4 percentage points. Zimbabwe made significant progress in infrastructure in its early period as an independent state. The country managed to put in place a national electricity network and establish regional interconnection in the power sector; to build an extensive network of roads for countrywide accessibility and integration into the regional transport corridors; to lay the water and sewerage system; and to make progress on building dams and tapping the significant irrigation potential. Unfortunately, at present the cross-cutting issue across all these sectors is Zimbabwe's inability to maintain and rehabilitate the existing infrastructure since the country became immersed in economic and political turmoil in the late 1990s. Neglect of all sectors due to the crisis has resulted in a generalized lack of new investment (in the power and water sectors in particular), and the accumulation of a huge rehabilitation agenda. Quality of service has declined across the board. The power system has become unjustifiably costly, inefficient, and unreliable. The condition of roads has deteriorated to the point that Zimbabwe became a bottleneck on the North-South transport corridor. Rural connectivity hardly exists. Failure to treat potable water, along with the deterioration of the water, sanitation, and garbage disposal systems, was responsible for the spread of cholera in 2008. By 2010 cholera affected most areas of the country and posed a health threat to neighboring countries. Looking ahead, Zimbabwe faces a number of important infrastructure challenges. Zimbabwe's most pressing challenges lie in the power and water sectors. Inefficient and unreliable power supply poses major risks to the economy, while the maintenance and upgrading of existing power infrastructure no longer looks to be affordable. At the same time, overhauling the water and sewerage system is imperative for curbing the public health crisis.

This is a handbook designed to guide governments, public authorities and other interested stakeholders in the process of designing and tendering sustainable Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangements in the irrigation sector. It takes a practical, step-by-step approach in describing what a government needs to do in preparing and implementing a PPP irrigation scheme from inception. The handbook takes account of the various stages of the irrigation value chain and how to handle private sector participation in irrigation schemes of different sizes and types. It assumes that governments have already made the underlying policy decision to embark on a PPP in irrigation, and therefore does not dwell on the rationale for undertaking a PPP. The handbook's practical aspects are contained in four, stand-alone chapters that follow an over-arching Executive Summary and an Introduction. The chapters are deliberately numbered to coincide with the four steps that a government should take in establishing an irrigation PPP: Preparation, Structuring, Procurement Management, and Implementation. In addition, each chapter concludes with a practical Checklist to help executives keep track of the necessary tasks in each step on the way to establishing a sustainable PPP operation. The chapters are designed to be read as stand-alone guides, out of an understanding that institutions using the book may already have completed prior steps. Nevertheless, it would be prudent for users to acquaint themselves with the entire handbook so as to develop a holistic view of the requirements for a full PPP project. Chapter One: Preparation is divided into two parts, A and B (each with its own concluding Checklist). Part A reviews the scope for introducing PPPs into the irrigation sector, identifying the issues that policymakers should consider from the outset in order to make the private sector's involvement feasible with a specific irrigation project.Part B discusses the irrigation as a business. It contains a variety of case studies—the first time such studies have been documented—with discussion of lessons learned, PPP types, transfer of investment functions in developing countries, competitive bidding, and third party involvement among the subjects covered. Chapter Two: Structuring a PPP sets out the various tasks that must be completed to structure a sustainable PPP contract. Chapter Three: Managing Procurement examines how to select a private contractor, which involves such factors as the fiscal commitments to the PPP, to what extent the process should be competitive and how that might be conducted and managed, and what issues are peculiar to PPPs in irrigation.Chapter Four: Implementation highlights management of the contract and establishment of those management structures, monitoring, penalties and grantor's rights, use of performance bonds, enforcement of customer payments, dealing with changes to the contract, and contract expiry and asset handover. The overall structure of the handbook is illustrated below. The handbook is supported by three annexes: Annex 1 explains how to use the Excel Options Assessment Tool, , and Annex 2 provides case studies of 29 existing or emerging irrigation PPPs.

China is experiencing rapid and large scale urbanization, and the resulting local and global urban environmental challenges are unprecedented. The Chinese Government has fully recognized these challenges and is aiming to promote more sustainable urbanization in line with the objectives of the eleventh five year plan, which calls for 'building a resource-conserving and environmentally friendly society'. Various initiatives are being pursued to support this objective, both at the national and local levels. At the local level, cities have responded by developing 'eco-cities', which aim to promote a more sustainable urbanization model. More than one hundred eco-city initiatives have been launched in recent years. One such initiative is the Sino-Singapore Tianjin eco-city. The purpose of this report is to review the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City (SSTEC) project from a comprehensive perspective with a view to achieving the following principal objectives: (i) create a detailed knowledge base on the project; (ii) provide policy advice on key issues, especially those related to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) project; (iii) estimate SSTEC's Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reduction potential; and (iv) contextualize the project among the broader ecological urban development initiatives in China. Broadening the World Bank's engagement beyond the GEF was assessed as important given the project's complexity, and its potential to shed light on China's sustainable urban development challenges