South Africa is suffering an electricity crisis. Blackouts have been widespread and the impact disastrous. Electricity supply is predicted to constrain growth for at least the next five years. How could this have occurred when until recently South Africa had a surplus of cheap electricity? This...

Basic services are essential to reducing poverty and improving quality of life. This working paper focuses on health, education, energy and water. These services contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, as well as being goals in themselves. Over the past twenty years or so, the...

Policies to promote privatisation in developing-country infrastructure gained momentum in the early 1990s as donors grew increasingly frustrated with efforts to strengthen public sector services that continued to fail. The strategy was intended to bring both finance and efficiency to ailing...