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A wealth of accumulated evidence shows that basic infrastructure services, including transport, energy, water and sanitation, and digital infrastructure, are key in the fight against poverty. These services directly enhance people’s connections to jobs and economic opportunities, improve the access to goods and services and their affordability, and ultimately support productivity and economic growth.
However, evidence also shows that the positive impact of infrastructure varies across locations, social groups and skill levels, among others. Additionally, at the microeconomic and macroeconomic levels, the impact depends on the design and implementation details of infrastructure investment and management.
This report proposes a framework to guide this process and illustrates that framework with numerous examples from the existing literature and case studies provided by the G20 member countries. The report starts by arguing, based on the empirical evidence to date, that effective infrastructure access hinges on infrastructure services meeting three crucial conditions: availability, quality, and affordability.
- Availability requires that essential infrastructure services be easily reachable by all households, regardless of their location or income level. However, the presence of infrastructure services only indicates potential rather than actual usage and does not guarantee developmental impact.
- The quality of infrastructure services is multifaceted. It matters during the implementation and provision stages, and includes reliability, safety, and convenience. Higher quality leads to greater usability and positive outcomes, increasing the willingness of households to pay for and use the services.
- Affordability means that paying for the costs of the services should not hinder people from meeting all their other basic needs. These expenses encompass all connections and use costs associated with accessing and using these essential services, including the equipment and appliances needed to benefit from them. Properly assessing effective access requires that countries’ development strategies clearly define a minimal basket and quality of services that households should receive, and ensure that those services are available and affordable.