Countries exiting conflict and fragility face many urgent priorities and almost invariably suffer from substantial infrastructure deficits. There is typically very little infrastructure investment during periods of fragility and conflict, and existing installations are often damaged or destroyed. The purpose of this manual is to contribute to improvements in the quality of infrastructure regulation. It does so by identifying key principles for the governance of infrastructure regulators and by suggesting how these principles can be introduced successfully and maintained over time. The introduction of cross-cutting governance principles for regulators is based on the assumption that a uniform set of governance principles can be less costly and complex for governments to implement and enforce and will provide potential investors with a more consistent and predictable regulatory environment to navigate. The manual also discusses the process of implementing regulatory governance reforms in fragile contexts. Improvements in governance frameworks for infrastructure regulators will support better and accountable regulatory decision-making, as well as increased investment and overall economic development. Case studies from relevant country experience complement and provide context to the discussion on principles.

Ch. 1. Regulating infrastructure : a review of the issues, problems, and challenges / Ed Araral [und weitere] -- pt. I. Problems, issues, and perspectives in regulation, regulatory design and outcomes. ch. 2. Infrastructure regulation : what works, why, and how do we know? / Judith Clifton [und weitere]. ch. 3. Does political accountability matter for infrastructure regulation? : the case of telecommunications / Farid Gasmi, Paul Noumba and Laura Recuero Virto. ch. 4. Entry relaxation and an independent regulator : performance impact on the mobile telecoms industry in Asia / Chalita Srinuan, Pratompong Srinuan and Erik Bohlin -- pt. II. Electricity sector regulation & governance. ch. 5. Risk, regulation and governance : institutional processes and regulatory risk in the Thai energy sector / Darryl S.L. Jarvis. ch. 6. Electricity tariff regulation in Thailand : analyses and applications of incentive regulation / Puree Sirasoontorn. ch. 7. Regulating power without a five year plan : institutional changes in the Chinese power sector / Kun-Chin Lin, Mika Purra and Hui Lin. ch. 8. The Indonesian electricity sector : institutional transition, regulatory capacity and outcomes / Mika Purra. ch. 9. Regulating the independent power producers : a comparative analysis of performance of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu in India / Rajendra Kumar. ch. 10. Partial privatization and nested regulation : institutional choices in public sector and regulatory reform / Sunil Tankha. ch. 11. The electricity industry reform in Korea : lessons for further liberalization / Junki Kim and Kyuhyun Kim -- pt. III. Water sector regulation & governance. ch. 12. Regulatory independence and contract incompleteness : assessing regulatory effectiveness in water privatization in Manila / Xun Wu, Loit Batac and Nepomuceno A. Malaluan. ch. 13. Can regulation improve the performance of government-controlled water utilities? / David Ehrhardt and Nils Janson. ch. 14. Effects of regulatory quality and political institutions on access to water and sanitation / Andrew B. Whitford, Helen Smith and Anant Mandawat. ch. 15. The regulation of water infrastructure in Italy : origins and effects of an 'hybrid' regulatory system / Alberto Asquer. ch. 16. Measuring effectiveness of regulation across a river system : a welfare approach / Alex Coram and Lyle Noakes. ch. 17. Private sector participation and regulatory reform in water supply : the Southern Mediterranean experience / Edouard Perard. ch. 18. Tempered responsiveness through regulatory negotiations in the water sector : managing unanticipated innovations emerging from participation reforms / Boyd Fuller and Sunil Tankha

More than 200 new infrastructure regulators have been created around the world in the last 15 years. They were established to encourage clear and sustainable long-term economic and legal commitments by governments and investors to encourage new investment to benefit existing and new customers. There is now considerable evidence that both investors and consumers-the two groups that were supposed to have benefited from these new regulatory systems-have often been disappointed with their performance. The fundamental premise of this book is that regulatory systems can be successfully reformed only if there are independent, objective and public evaluations of their performance. Just as one goes to a medical doctor for a regular health checkup, it is clear that infrastructure regulation would also benefit from periodic checkups. This book provides a general framework as well as detailed practical guidance on how to perform such "regulatory checkups."

Environmental issues continue to burden governments and economies throughout the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. Severe environmental degradation is endemic to the region, the existing environmental infrastructure is often inadequate, significant new investment is perhaps decades away, and there is little knowledge of advanced techniques for impact assessment, project evaluation, and project financing. The first two papers of Environmental Infrastructure Management survey available cost-effective technology for solid waste treatment and air pollution control, providing guidance for possible incremental additions to existing infrastructure. There is also a discussion of transferable pollution credits as an instrument in regulating air quality. The discussion of economic incentives also embraces user fees and other pollution control instruments. A range of methods is presented for the evaluation and comparison of alternative projects where data are poor or scarce. Canadian experience with specific capital budgeting techniques is given comprehensive attention. Debt financing strategies are addressed in the context of present-day Ukraine. Finally, an outline is given of a general framework for making decisions about environmental projects, including the use of environmental impact assessments.

The purpose of this book is to present a range of cases and comparison of the issues, insights and cases emerging from the Sustainable Energy Mix Summit in the Galapagos that offer a better understanding of energy mix in fragile environments from a variety of International locations and contexts including the Galapagos.

Governments have increasingly come to recognize the economic potential and fiscal advantages of privatization. Privatization, under the right conditions, can also yield environmental benefits and contribute to sustainable development. This report contains a number of case studies which highlight the lessons learned about the environmental implications of privatization. It stresses that privatization offers an opportunity for making strategic decisions with longer-term impacts. This report also emphasizes that integrating environmental and social considerations into the privatization process leads to more sustainable outcomes. It also recommends strategies toward building on the positive linkages between privatization and environmental protection.

Interest and research on regionalism has soared in the last decade. Local governments in metropolitan areas and civic organizations are increasingly engaged in cooperative and collaborative public policy efforts to solve problems that stretch across urban centers and their surrounding suburbs. Yet there remains scant attention in textbooks to the issues that arise in trying to address metropolitan governance. Governing Metropolitan Areas describes and analyzes structure to understand the how and why of regionalism in our global age. The book covers governmental institutions and their evolution to governance, but with a continual focus on institutions. David Hamilton provides the necessary comprehensive, in-depth description and analysis of how metropolitan areas and governments within metropolitan areas developed, efforts to restructure and combine local governments, and governance within the polycentric urban region. This second edition is a major revision to update the scholarship and current thinking on regional governance. While the text still provides background on the historical development and growth of urban areas and governments' efforts to accommodate the growth of metropolitan areas, this edition also focuses on current efforts to provide governance through cooperative and collaborative solutions. There is also now extended treatment of how regional governance outside the United States has evolved and how other countries are approaching regional governance.

Mining refers to the process of extracting minerals and metals from the crust of the earth. Some minerals can be mined more easily as they are found on the earth’s surface, while others lie far beneath the surface and can be obtained only by digging deep underground. Gold, Silver, Diamond, Iron, Coal, Aluminum (Bauxite) and Uranium are some of the vast array of metals and minerals that are obtained by the latter process. In fact, mining is the source of all the substances that cannot be obtained by industrial processes or through agriculture. Mining, in its wider sense connotes extracting and processing of a non - renewable mineral resource. Minerals can be classified into metallic (iron, copper, gold, aluminum, uranium etc.) and non-metallic (sand, salt, phosphates etc.) These minerals are non-renewable or depleting assets and once mined-out, they are exhausted and are lost forever without any chance of replenishment. Simply, this exhaustible resource cannot be harvested, unlike agricultural products.

This publication follows up on the 1993 review of the Banks's experience in telecommunications. it assesses how their assistance from has influenced the development of information infrastructure in developing countries. It finds that the recommendations from 1993 have generally been heeded with the adoption of a new private sector led agenda and increasing the share of IFC in total Bank Group funding commitments. However the ability to play a global policy leadership role has been hampered by a benign neglect of the sector at both the strategic and country management level.

Private firms are at the forefront of the development process, providing more than 90 percent of jobs, supplying goods and services, and representing a significant source of tax revenues. Their ability to grow, create jobs, and reduce poverty depends critically on a well-functioning investment climate--defined as the policy, legal, and institutional arrangements underpinning the functioning of markets and the level of transaction costs and risks associated with starting, operating, and closing a business. The World Bank Group has provided extensive support to investment climate reforms. This evaluation by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) assesses the relevance, effectiveness, and social value of World Bank Group support to investment climate reforms as it relates to concerns for inclusion and shared prosperity. IEG finds that the World Bank Group has supported a comprehensive menu of investment climate reforms and has improved investment climate in countries, as measured by number of laws enacted, streamlining of processes and time, or simple cost savings for private firms. However, the impact on investment, jobs, business formation, and growth is not straightforward. Regulatory reforms need to be designed and implemented with both economic and social costs and benefits in mind; IEG found that, in practice, World Bank Group support focuses predominantly on reducing costs to businesses. In supporting investment climate reforms, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation use two distinct but complementary business models. Despite the fact that investment climate is the most integrated business unit in the World Bank Group, coordination is mostly informal, relying mainly on personal contacts. IEG recommends that the World Bank Group expand its range of diagnostic tools and integrate them in the areas of the business environment not yet covered by existing tools; develop an approach to identify the social effects of regulatory reforms on all groups expected to be affected by them beyond the business community; and exploit synergies by ensuring that World Bank and IFC staff improve their understanding of each other's work and business models.