Regionalising Infrastructure Reform in Developing Countries

The principal conclusion of this essay is that regionalisation of infrastructure regulation (i.e. the creation of supranational regulatory authorities such as WATRA or ECTEL) is likely to yield significant benefits that go beyond exploiting economies of scale in both infrastructure industries and regulatory institutions. Regional integration of regulation, combined with regionalisation of regulated firms, assists developing countries in overcoming national limits in technical expertise, enhances national capacity to make credible commitments to stable regulatory policy, facilitates the introduction of competition into historically monopolised markets, improves the efficiency of infrastructure industries by allowing them to grow without respecting economically artificial national boundaries, and ultimately increases infrastructure investment.