Financing the Future

A model developed to predict demand for infrastructure in Latin America performs reasonably well for power and telecommunications, and less well for water and sanitation (for which data are scarce) and transport infrastructure (which is less closely related to per capita income). The model projects a doubling of telephone mainlines per capita, a steady increase in power infrastructure, steady growth in road infrastructure, and small increases in water and sanitation coverage. To assess five-year demand for infrastructure investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the private sector's role in meeting this demand, Fay developed a model to predict future demand for infrastructure, defined as what consumers and producers would ask for, given their income and level of economic activity.