Ethiopia's Infrastructure : A Continental Perspective
Infrastructure contributed 0.6 percentage points to Ethiopia's annual per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the last decade. Raising the country's infrastructure endowment level to that of the region's middle-income cou...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/411221468209067997/Ethiopias-infrastructure-a-continental-perspective http://hdl.handle.net/10986/27761 |
| Summary: | Infrastructure contributed 0.6
percentage points to Ethiopia's annual per capita gross
domestic product (GDP) growth over the last decade. Raising
the country's infrastructure endowment level to that of
the region's middle-income countries could lift annual
growth by an additional 3 percentage points. This will
represent a significant boost over the growth performance of
the mid-2000s, which averaged around 5 percent. The Africa
Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has collected and
analyzed extensive infrastructure data for more than 40
Sub-Saharan countries, including Ethiopia. The results are
presented in reports on various infrastructure sectors
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT),
irrigation, power, transport, water and sanitation and
policy areas, including investment needs, fiscal costs, and
sector performance. This country report presents the key
AICD findings for Ethiopia. This will allow its
infrastructure situation to be benchmarked against that of
other African nations that, like Ethiopia, are low-income
countries, with particular emphasis on immediate regional
neighbors in East Africa. Several methodological issues
should be borne in mind. First, the cross country nature of
the data collection creates an inevitable time lag. The
period covered by the AICD runs from 2001 to 2006. Most
technical data are presented for 2006 (or the most recent
year available), while financial data typically are averaged
over the available period to smooth out the effect of short
term fluctuations. Second, cross country comparisons require
standardization of the indicators and the analysis to ensure
consistency. Therefore, some of the indicators may be
slightly different from those that are routinely reported
and discussed at the country level. During the 2000s,
Ethiopia's annual economic growth has averaged 4.8
percent, compared with only 0.5 percent in the previous
decade. Notwithstanding this improvement, current annual
growth levels still fall short of the sustained 7 percent
needed to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Improved
structural and stabilization policies generated an estimated
4.2 percent of Ethiopia's improved per capita growth
performance during the 2000s, and improvements in the
country's infrastructure platform over that period
contributed up to 0.6 percentage points to growth. This was
due almost entirely to the introduction of mobile telephony
in Ethiopia. Simulations suggest that if Ethiopia's
infrastructure platform could be improved to the level of
the African leader, Mauritius, annual per capita growth
rates could increase by 3.8 percent. This potential impact
would come equally from improvements to transport, power,
and ICT infrastructure. |
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