Description:
Infrastructure contributed 1.3
percentage points to Burkina Faso's annual per capita
gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the past decade,
much of it due to improvements in information and
communication technology (ICT). Raising the country's
infrastructure endowment to that of the region's
middle-income countries (MICs) could boost annual growth by
more than 3 percentage points per capita. Burkina Faso has
made significant progress developing its infrastructure in
recent years, especially in the ICT sector. The country has
also moved forward in the areas of road maintenance and
water and sanitation, but still faces challenges in these
sectors, as well as in the electricity sector. As of 2007,
Burkina Faso faced an annual infrastructure funding gap of
$165 million per year, or 4 percent of GDP. That gap could
be cut in half by the adoption of more appropriate
technologies to meet infrastructure targets in the transport
and the water and sanitation sectors. Even if Burkina Faso
were unable to increase infrastructure spending or otherwise
close the infrastructure funding gap, simply by moving from
a 10- to 18-year horizon the country could address its
efficiency gap and meet the posited infrastructure targets.