Millions of the world's poor cannot rely on private firms to provide basic energy and water supplies as developing nations face a race against time to cope with their fast-growing populations, experts warned Monday.
Better access to water, energy, transportation and telecommunications, as well as a clampdown on corruption, are key to alleviating still widespread global poverty, the World Bank's annual development conference heard.
Among the 6.3 billion people in the world today, 1.6 billion do not have access to basic energy services, 500 million of them in Sub-Saharan Africa, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz said.
About 2.6 billion people lack access to water and sanitation services. "The global supply of infrastructure is not able to answer the needs of today," said Wolfowitz.
"We have moved away from a paradigm which once expected the private sector to play the dominant role in infrastructure," he said. Private sector investment in infrastructure in developing countries peaked at about 128 billion dollars in 1997 but by 2003 had more than halved to 58 billion dollars, according to World Bank figures.
"It is apparent that the capacity or willingness of the private sector to respond to all the infrastructure needs is limited," said Wolfowitz.
In the 1990s there were high hopes that a greater private sector role would provide the roads, water and energy supplies needed to help ease help global poverty, said Hadi Esfahani, professor at the University of Illinois. "That outcome failed to materialise," he said. However, private firms are still expected to play an important role.
Soon Africa will be a continent of one billion people and the public sector lacks the resources to build the necessary infrastructure to cope, said African Development Bank president Donald Kaberuka.
"Governments alone, donors alone won't be able to do it. We must be able to work intelligently with the private sector," Kaberuka said.
While the global population is growing, it is also becoming increasingly urban with the number of city dwellers expected next year to surpass the number of people living in rural areas for the first time ever, the conference heard.
"This unprecedented urban growth comes with enormous challenges of meeting the basis infrastructure needs of people while preserving the environment they live in," Wolfowitz told the two-day event.
The theme of the conference, "Infrastructure and Development", reflects a growing focus on the need to provide better roads, transportation, energy and water supplies to improve the lives of billions of the world's poorest people.
Africans lose 40 billion productive working hours each year just carrying water, time that could be spent in education, earning an income or starting new businesses, Wolfowitz said.
There were also warnings that corruption continues to hamper efforts to better the lives of millions.