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Rail Transport : Framework for Improving Railway Sector Performance in Sub-Saharan AfricaIn most of the Sub-Saharan African (SSA)
 countries railways have played, throughout history, a key
 part in the economic development maintaining a dominant role
 in transporting freight and passengers at low costs. During
 the last 50 years, the road transport in the region as
 throughout the world has expanded rapidly due to the
 aggressive development of the automobile industry. African
 governments have invested mainly in road infrastructure
 improvement, neglecting railways. The liberalization in road
 transport and the slow response of railways to adapt to the
 new market conditions resulted in dramatic traffic decline
 in rail transport. By 1990 most of the Sub-Saharan African
 railways were in virtual bankruptcy, requiring permanent
 cash injection and large investments in infrastructure and
 rolling stock. To address the crisis, many governments have
 considered concessions as a solution, and between the
 mid-1990s and 2010 most of the railways were concessioned.
 Currently, more than 70 percent of the rail transport
 activities in the region (excluding South Africa) are
 managed by private operators. The World Bank Group (IDA and
 IFC) has supported most concession processes through grants
 and loans, investing since 1996 more than one billion
 dollars to support the efforts of the governments and
 private operators. The recommendations suggested in the
 present document are based on a comprehensive approach for
 improving the performance of the railway sector in parallel
 with the enhancement of the governance of the transport
 sector. The rhythm of implementation of such a complex set
 of recommendations may vary from country to country
 depending on local conditions and will require, in any case,
 a long period of time. Nevertheless, the dramatic status of
 the railway transport sector in SSA requires rapid actions.
 In this respect, the present work includes a selected list
 of most urgent recommendations to be implemented in the
 first stage. The way ahead for improving the performance of
 railways in Sub-Saharan Africa is a complex endeavor that
 cannot be achieved without the strong involvement of the
 private sector.
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Railway Reform in South East Europe and Turkey : On the Right Track?The railways of South East Europe and
 Turkey experienced significant declines in traffic volumes
 in 2009. This reflected the impact of the international
 financial crisis unleashed in the last quarter of 2008 and
 its contractionary impact on the economies of the region and
 elsewhere. Lower traffic volumes translated in most cases
 into a serious deterioration of the financial performance of
 the state-owned railways. This brought home the costs of
 failing to implement essential reforms to improve the
 operational and financial performance of the sector when the
 economy was strong. In Romania in 2010, large-scale layoffs
 were announced at short notice for the state rail companies.
 The situation is similar for the Bulgarian state rail
 incumbents; they face an acute liquidity crisis, and will
 require additional state aid merely to keep running. The
 lesson of these events is clear: it is unwise to delay
 implementing state railway sector reforms during good
 economic times, because the consequences can be too severe
 if a financial downturn occurs before those reforms have
 been taken and properly implemented. This report begins by
 assessing implementation of the European Union (EU) legal
 and institutional framework and the state of institutional
 reform in South East Europe and Turkey. It then turns to a
 comparative assessment of the operational and financial
 performance of the rail sector in each of the 10 countries
 over 2005-2009, comparing the report countries with the
 EU-27 benchmark and three EU countries, Germany, Poland, and
 Slovenia. The report then moves on to the issue of rail
 corridor performance, with a specific focus on improving the
 institutional and regulatory environment at border-crossing
 points, before offering some conclusions. The first annex
 focuses on the performance of the incumbent state-owned
 railways of South East Europe and Turkey in much greater detail.
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Peru - Recent Economic Development in Infrastructure : Volume 2. Investing in Infrastructure as an Engine for Growth - Spending More, Faster, and Spending BetterThis report provided the Government of
 Peru with a comprehensive strategic assessment of three key
 infrastructure sectors: water/sanitation, transport and
 electricity, and to propose selected recommendations on how
 the Government could improve the performance of these
 sectors. Peru's public expenditure framework shows some
 rigidities, a number of which were introduced when fiscal
 resources were scarce or, more recently, because of concerns
 about a possible risk of inflation. The implementation of
 the stimulus package has required a laborious transition to
 remove bottlenecks to faster public spending, sometimes at
 the risk of affecting the mechanisms that help ensure the
 quality of public expenditures. The Peruvian authorities
 have been able to accelerate public investments in
 infrastructure but little thinking has been dedicated to
 improving the efficiency and effectiveness of such
 investments. The report concludes that Peru should focus
 on: prioritizing infrastructure investments through
 improved planning, promoting efficiency in infrastructure
 delivery, enhancing sub-national governments' capacity
 with respect to infrastructure, and leveraging the
 participation of the private sector.