STAKES

To promote a system of regulation likely to support the attack of the Objectives of the Millenium for the Development by:

• Facilitate information and experience sharing and the application of common and consistent decision making practices and procedures among regulators
• Facilitate regulatory capacity building among Members through skills training and development of regulatory staff.

CONFERENCE THEME:

PRO POOR REGULATION: MEETING THE MDGS FOR
Infrastructure Services in Africa

1. PInfrastructure privatization: What are the lessons for the poor, and for the future?
   
   Literature on Public sector reform: models of privatization and liberalization, and new regulatory framework of public utilities; assessment of socio economic impact (investments, service delivery, pricing, employment, etc.) with special emphasis on the poor, with concrete examples from Africa and other regions; and make recommendations for policy options, and tradeoffs, based on best practices, for the way forward regarding the respective role of public and private sector, and infrastructure regulatory framework that benefits the poor.
   
   
2. Pro–poor regulation: subsidies or cross subsidies?
   
   Review of the literature on access and affordability obstacles to infrastructure services facing the poor. Assess the opportunity, effectiveness, and costs and benefits, from different perspectives including sources, sustainability, and mechanisms, of the system of general redistribution (subsidies) and the system of redistribution (cross subsidies) between different services (such as water and sewerage), different types of customers (such as domestic and commercial), different geographical areas (such as urban and rural), and different levels of consumption; make recommendations with tradeoffs and policy options.
   
   
3. Are the poor a problem or an opportunity for business? Are the poor too poor to pay for services?
   
   Review policies and practices excluding the poor, and the market of substitute services (water, transports, energy, etc.) used by the poor based on examples across the continent, and in other regions. Make policy recommendations with engendering solutions towards facilitating access to and affordability of conventional infrastructure services by the poor, using best practices from Africa and around the world regarding market structure, exclusivity arrangements, pricing structure, standards and new technology, and partnership between traditional suppliers and local groups with the required expertise etc. Also highlight the role of the key actors, in particular regulators, public agencies, private sector, and local communities.
   
   
4. Pro–poor regulation: what obligations and what incentives for private companies?
   
   Overview of the many risks facing private operators of infrastructure services; and consider the measures to mitigating the risks, while striking the right balance between efficiency and quality of service delivery, and equity for the poor (the carrot and the stick) with cross sector comparison; make policy recommendations regarding contractual arrangements, facilitating market entry, risk sharing, competition, investment and quality targets, and transactions regulations; also provide some views on the scope and limits of the regulation.
   
   
5. Infrastructure services decentralization: challenges and lessons for poverty reduction policies
   
   Review of the literature on infrastructure decentralization, with the perspective of poverty reduction. Taking into account the general tendency to shift responsibilities from central government to sub-national authorities, including urban services of transport (buses), water, road, becoming more and more the responsibilities of municipalities, assess the pros and cons, particularly the tension between responsiveness to local needs, and the many constraints associated with infrastructure decentralization, including financial constraints and governance shortcomings; and make policy recommendations drawing on best practices from Africa and from other regions
   
   
6. Efficiency and Equity trade-offs: what role for development partners?
   
   Review the role played by development partners in the privatization process, particularly through the conditionalities attached to public sector reform, including the principle of “full cost recovery”. What lessons and what new approaches by development partners? And what assistance to Regulators in view to making infrastructure services work for the poor and remain sustainable