ASi" kUCTURE FlOR DEVELOPMENT

Box 1.7 Infastiucture activities tireaten the Black Sea environment
The Black Sea is fed by a basin of more than 2 million. dedine in the once-productive Black Sea fishery over the
square kilometers;-covering parts of seventeen countries last thirty years.
in Central and Eastem Europe, the forner Soviet Union, With assistance from the Global Environment Fadland
Turkl It receives the inflows of several major ity the six Black Sea countries (Bulgaria, Georgia. Romarivers,
including the Danube, Don, Dnieper, and. nia, Russia, Turke, and Ukraine) have begun a reional
Dnieste= As an almost fully endosed water body, the program to analyze the causes of observed environmen-
Black Seais especiallyvulnerable to changes in the quan- tal degradation and to propose solutions. Actions in the
lity and quality of inflows from these niverm The Don basin to regulate fertilizer use -and to control point
and Dnieper, in partitalar, have been highly developed sources of pollution ar expected to result in reductions
for irrigation and other purposes through a dhain of of nutrient-inflowss Pilot projects are proposed to restore
reservois- : fish production under the new salinitv conditions.
Increasing pollutant loads from these rivers-espe- Under the Bank-supported Environmental Management
dialy the nutrients ntrogei and phosphorus-have led Project for Russia, a study of the Lower Don Basin will
to algal blooms and the destruction of important nurserv investigate ways to alter the operating rules -for the
areas for fish. In addition, damming of the major rvers major reservoirs to promote greater fish regeneration
for navigation, flood control, water supply, and, above downstreamall
for irrigation, has considerably altered the seasonal Given the size of the problern and the importance of
flow patterns of these rivers The damming has also de- these reservoirs in the agricultural economies of Ukraine
creased the total inflow to the Bladc Sea, resulting in an and Russia, it would be unrealistic to expect dramatic
increase in salinity in critical coastal and estuarine areas, changes Nevertheless, recognition of the problem and
especially in the Sea of Azov, wthich creates further prob- the development of mechanisnis for regional cooperalems
for fish breeding. The overall result is a 90 percent tion now make progress much more likely.
ments in most countries have not taken advantage in such circums ances, other means of making supof
the potential for competition, even in activities pliers accountable to users are needed. Through
where a natural monopoly does not exist, such as various mechanisms designed to broaden participa--
road freight transport or solid waste collection. tion in decisionmaking and to provide wide access
Today competition can be used directly in more in- to information on infrastructure provision, users
frastructure activities because of technological and other key stakeholders can be represented in
changes. In telecommunications, satellite, mi- (and sometimes take responsibility -for) the plancrowave,
and cellular radio transmission of tele- ning, financing, and delivery of services.
phone signals is revolutionizing the industry, making
the economies of scale with cable-based Opportunity knockstransmission
less important. In power generation,
combined-cycle gas turbines operate efficiently at Many of the above notions are not new, and some
lower output levels -than other generation technolo- have been accepted in principle by policymakers if
gies. While open competition for users in the market not yet put successfully into practice. Three facis
still not feasible in many infrastructure areas, tors-technological change, more pragmatic attithere
are other ways of obtaining the benefits of tudes, and a greater sensitivity to infrastructure's
competition. For activities with high sunk costs, implications for poverty and environmental suscompeting
for the right to operate a monopoly can tainabiLity-have created a new climate for recapture.
many of these benefits. Even where the form. Innovative techniques for drawing on prinumber
of operators is necessarily limited, regula- vate financing for investment create a further
tion can compel them to compete against perfor- challenge to traditional ways of providing inframance
benchmarks ("yardstick" competition)- structure. Many countries are now taking advantage
of all these opportunities to test new ideas
INVOLVEMENT OF USERS AND OTE{R SrAKEHOLDERS. and approaches, discussed in later chapters of this
In many infrastructure activities, market signals Reportcannot
be relied on to provide information about
demand or to gauge performance. Where users are TECHNOLOGY. Technological changes are creating
locked into a delivery network, they cannot express a varety of new opportunities for changing the way
their preferences or dissatisfaction through choice. infrastructure is provided in almost every sector-
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