Infrastructure Gap in South Asia : Inequality of Access to Infrastructure Services
The South Asia region is home to the largest pool of individuals living under the poverty line, coupled with a fast-growing population. The importance of access to basic infrastructure services on welfare and the quality of life is clear. Yet the S...
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank Group, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2014/09/20210855/infrastructure-gap-south-asia-inequality-access-infrastructure-services http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20344 |
| Summary: | The South Asia region is home to the
largest pool of individuals living under the poverty line,
coupled with a fast-growing population. The importance of
access to basic infrastructure services on welfare and the
quality of life is clear. Yet the South Asia region's
rates of access to infrastructure (sanitation, electricity,
telecom, and transport) are closer to those of Sub-Saharan
Africa, the one exception being water, where the South Asia
region is comparable to East Asia and the pacific and Latin
America and the Caribbean. The challenge of increasing
access to these services across the South Asia region is
compounded by the unequal distribution of existing access
for households. This study improves understanding of this
inequality by evaluating access across the region's
physical (location), poverty, and income considerations. The
paper also analyzes inequality of access across time, that
is, across generations. It finds that while the regressivity
of infrastructure services is clearly present in South Asia,
the story that emerges is heterogeneous and complex. There
is no simple explanation for these inequalities, although
certainly geography matters, some household characteristics
matter (like living in a rural area with a head of household
who lacks education), and policy intent matters. If a poorer
country or a poorer state can have better access to a given
infrastructure service than in a richer country or a richer
state, then there is hope that policy makers can adopt
measures that will improve access in a manner in which
prosperity is more widely shared. |
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