Sustainable infrastructure development is vital for Africa's prosperity. And now is the time to begin the transformation. This volume is the culmination of an unprecedented effort to document, analyze, and interpret the full extent of the challenge in developing Sub-Saharan Africa's infrastructure sectors. As a result, it represents the most comprehensive reference currently available on infrastructure in the region. The book covers the five main economic infrastructure sectors information and communication technology, irrigation, power, transport, and water and sanitation. Africa's infrastructure sectors lag well behind those of the rest of the world, and the gap is widening. Some of the main policy-relevant findings highlighted in the book include the following: infrastructure in the region is exceptionally expensive, with tariffs being many times higher than those found elsewhere. Inadequate and expensive infrastructure is retarding growth by 2 percentage points each year. Solving the problem will cost over US$90 billion per year, which is more than twice what is being spent in Africa today. However, money alone is not the answer. Prudent policies, wise management, and sound maintenance can improve efficiency. There is the potential to recover an additional US$17 billion a year from within the existing infrastructure resource envelope simply by improving efficiency. Finally, the power sector and fragile states represent particular challenges. Even if every efficiency in every infrastructure sector could be captured, a substantial funding gap of $31 billion a year would remain. Nevertheless, the African people and economies cannot wait any longer. Now is the time to begin the transformation to sustainable infrastructure development. Table of Contents Part I: The Overall Story Introduction: The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic 1 Meeting AfricaA?s Infrastructure Needs 2 Closing AfricaA?s Funding Gap 3 Dealing with Poverty and Inequality 4 Building Sound Institutions 5 Facilitating Urbanization 6 Deepening Regional Integration Part II: Sectoral Snapshots 7 Information and Communication Technologies: A Boost for Growth 8 Power: Catching Up 9 Transport: More Than the Sum of Its Parts 10 Roads: Broadening the Agenda 11 Railways: Looking for Traffi c 12 Ports and Shipping: Landlords Needed 13 Airports and Air Transport: The Sky Is the Limit 14 Water Resources: A Common Interest 15 Irrigation: Tapping Potential 16 Water Supply: Hitting the Target? 17 Sanitation: Moving Up the Ladder Index...

In Africa, with the expansion of coverage of primary education in recent decades, many of the remaining out-of-school children are in hard to reach areas, with low population density and poor transport. Providing access to education is challenging in such contexts, as the population in any village is often too small to support a conventional primary school. One of the answers is the use of multigrade teaching, where one teacher works with students of two or more grades. This paper examines the practice of multigrade teaching in three African countries, Uganda, Senegal, and The Gambia. Although these three cases had very different approaches to multigrade, their experiences suggest that multigrade teaching is a promising and cost-effective option, but that successful implementation requires sustained support from policymakers, adequate training of teachers, and careful explanation of the approach to parents and the communities....