"Developing countries face massive infrastructure needs, but public spending on infrastructure is inadequate, and public investment has been declining in recent years. Rising debt levels and tightening fiscal and monetary conditions are putting further pressure on the funds available for infrastructure, heightening the importance of increasing the efficiency of infrastructure spending.
Off the Books: Understanding and Mitigating the Fiscal Risks of Infrastructure shows that however governments deliver infrastructure—through direct public provision, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), or public-private partnerships (PPPs), the risk of fiscal surprises is high in both good times and bad. As a result, infrastructure service delivery often ends up costing significantly more than expected, eroding limited fiscal space for productive spending.
This book makes a unique contribution by quantifying the magnitude and prevalence of fiscal risks from electricity and transport infrastructure and identifying their root cause