**The demand for infrastructure has been growing globally, especially in Asia.** Two decades ago, SAR and EAP had similar urbanization rates, 25 percent and 28 percent respectively, and were close in terms of infrastructure service provision.  Since 1990 SAR has enjoyed the second highest economic growth in the world behind only EAP. During the 1990s growth in SAR averaged over 5 percent, while between 2000 and 2012, it averaged 6.7 percent. But while economic growth has been accompanied by rapid urbanization in EAP (50 percent urbanization rate in 2012), SAR remains the least urbanized region in the world (31 percent), well below the world urbanization rate (53 percent) (Table 1).

**SAR has a large infrastructure gap compared with other regions.** Its access to infrastructure services closely resembles SSA, even though its economic growth is second only to EAP (Table 1).

- **_Electricity access._** In SAR only 71 percent of the population enjoys the benefits of electricity access, ahead of SSA at 35 percent, but way behind the rest of the regions at above 90 percent. According to businesses in South Asia, infrastructure is a major or severe hindrance to their growth, and electricity is the largest problem.

- **_Improved sanitation access._** In this category, SAR (39 percent) is at the bottom with SSA (30 percent) – rates that are close to half the world average of 64 percent population access. Open defecation seems to be one of the most salient issues facing SAR, with 680 million people (i.e., 41 percent of the population) relying on it in 2011.<sup>5</sup> This ranks South Asia as the region with the highest incidence of open defecation in the world.

- **_Improved water access._** This is the only indicator where South Asia is about even with the rest of the world and EAP, averaging 90 percent population access. Yet the quality and quantity of improved water may be in question. Most of the access to water is through public stands; only 25 percent of the population has access to piped water and 24/7 water supply is a rare exception in South Asian cities.<sup>6</sup>

- **_Telecom access._** Communication among people who are not in close proximity is inefficient. In terms of telecom access (measured as fixed and mobile lines per 100 people), SAR and SSA rank at the bottom (72 and 54) with less than half the access found in ECA and LAC (157 and 125).This situation becomes even more dramatic given SAR’s low level of urbanization.

- **_Transport access._** This other form of connectivity is also poor – a problem that troubles much of the developing world. Using total road network per 1,000 people, SAR has 2.9 km (Table 2)— which is close to EAP (2.5 km), SSA (2.5 km), and MNA (2.8 km), but well below the world average (4.7 km), ECA (8 km), and North America (24 km).<sup>7</sup> Furthermore, the transport infrastructure suffers from serious shortcomings (such as lack of intraregional connectivity between the national road networks, unrealized potential for rail and inland water freight transport, and inadequate road and rail connectivity of ports with hinterlands). These limitations turn transport infrastructure into a hindrance for regional and international trade, as investment climate surveys indicate.

> 5 WHO / UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for water supply and sanitation: http://www.wssinfo.org/data-estimates/table/ 6 Ibid.

> 7 World Development Indicators.

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