THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC’S INFRASTRUCTURE: A CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVE Infrastructure spending is skewed toward capital investment (figure 19). Expenditure on the rehabilitation and expansion of the existing network absorbs about three-fourths (or $95 million) of the total financial flows to infrastructure in the CAR. Operating expenditures account for the remaining onefourth (or $39 million) (table 20).

Operating expenditure in the CAR is entirely covered by budgetary resources and payments from users recovered by the stated-owned enterprises (table 20). The transport sector receives around half of the total O&M financing flows, mainly channeled to the road subsector.

Financing of capital expenditure is **Figure 19. Patterns of capital investment in infrastructure** mainly from the public sector. Close to **benchmarked against comparator countries** 50 percent of capital expenditure Investment in infrastructure sectors as percentage of GDP, by source funding comes from the public sector, from central and state governments, **Central** 4.0 and public enterprises. ODA accounts **African Republic** for 44 percent of total capital flows to 3.0 infrastructure. Private sector flows 2.0 account for just 5 percent of total capital investment, suggesting that the 1.0 PPI potential, even in the ICT sector, is 0.0 hardly tapped in the CAR. It is worth noticing that these figures do not capture the amounts invested by NGOs, which might be particularly Public ODA Non-OECD important in some sectors, such as _Source:_ Derived from Briceño-Garmendia, Smits, and Foster (2009). sanitation. Relative to comparable peer _Note:_ Private investment includes self-financing by households. Non-OECD states, the CAR is more reliant on financiers include China, India, and the Arab countries. public investment in the power and ODA = official development assistance; OECD = Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; ICT = information and communication technology; GDP transport sectors (figure 19). Most of = gross domestic product; WSS = water supply and sanitation. the capital flows to the ICT sector in the CAR come from the private sector, followed by ODA.

Investment in infrastructure sectors as percentage of GDP, by source <!-- Start of picture text --> Central Fragile<br>4.0<br>African States<br>Republic<br>3.0<br>2.0<br>1.0<br>0.0<br>Public ODA Non-OECD Private<br>Percentage of GDP<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Source:_ Derived from Briceño-Garmendia, Smits, and Foster (2009). _Note:_ Private investment includes self-financing by households. Non-OECD financiers include China, India, and the Arab countries. ODA = official development assistance; OECD = Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; ICT = information and communication technology; GDP = gross domestic product; WSS = water supply and sanitation.

Public spending is mostly channeled through the central government, in particular capital investment. It is particularly striking that the transport and water supply and sanitation sectors do not report any significant capital investments financed from own sources. Operating expenditure, on the other hand, is largely channeled through public enterprises. SODECA finances around 85 percent of the total O&M spending in the water supply and sanitation sectors. Spending by ENERCA represents 75 percent of the O&M funds allocated by the public sector in power. The road fund finances around 50 percent of the total O&M made by the public sector in transport (figure 20).

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