“Smart City” programs and strategies have become one of the most dominant urban agendas for local governments worldwide in the past two decades. The rapid urbanization rate and unprecedented growth of megacities in the 21st century triggered drastic changes in traditional ways of urban policy and planning, leading to an influx of digital technology applications for fast and efficient urban management. With the rising popularity in making our cities “smart”, several domains of urban management, urban infrastructure, and urban quality-of-life have seen increasing dependence on advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) that optimize and control the day-to-day functioning of urban systems. Smart Cities, essentially, act as digital networks that obtain large-scale real-time data on urban systems, process them, and make decisions on how to manage them efficiently. The book presents 26 chapters, which are organized around five topics: (1) Conceptual framework for smart cities and communities; (2) Technical concepts and models for smart city and communities; (3) Civic engagement and citizen participation; (4) Case studies from the Global North; and (5) Case studies from the Global South.

"Smart City" programs and strategies have become one of the most dominant urban agendas for local governments worldwide in the past two decades. The rapid urbanization rate and unprecedented growth of megacities in the 21st century triggered drastic changes in traditional ways of urban policy and planning, leading to an influx of digital technology applications for fast and efficient urban management. With the rising popularity in making our cities "smart", several domains of urban management, urban infrastructure, and urban quality-of-life have seen increasing dependence on advanced information and communication technologies (ICTs) that optimize and control the day-to-day functioning of urban systems. Smart Cities, essentially, act as digital networks that obtain large-scale real-time data on urban systems, process them, and make decisions on how to manage them efficiently. The book presents 26 chapters, which are organized around five topics: (1) Conceptual framework for smart cities and communities; (2) Technical concepts and models for smart city and communities; (3) Civic engagement and citizen participation; (4) Case studies from the Global North; and (5) Case studies from the Global South.

In September 2012, the Government of India approved a financial rescue scheme to revive the power generation sector. This bailout amounted to about Rs 1.9 trillion and came in response to banks and financial institutions with large nonperforming loans to the power sector. This is the second bailout of the sector in a decade. The first was in 2002 when the government had to convert the outstanding arrears of state electricity boards to central public sector undertakings. The 2002 bailout came to Rs 400 billion in state government bonds to restore the sector to financial solvency. The recent crisis and consequent bailout is more complicated than the 2002 bailout. Power sector developments in the past two decades have brought new players into a traditionally government-dominated sector, and they have also been implicated in the crisis. India has adopted transformative policy changes since the last bailout. A landmark Electricity Act was passed in 2003, superseding all previous legislation. The strategic intent of the act was to promote competition by opening all possible avenues for the procurement and sale of electric power. Subsidiary policies and enabling legislation have advanced this process. Competitive markets have evolved and attracted new investments, largely from the private sector. The institutional structure of the traditionally public sector-dominated industry has also been transformed. Aside from the entry of new private sector participants, primarily in generation, the state electricity boards (SEBs) were unbundled into generation, transmission, distribution, and, in a few cases, trading segments. State electricity regulatory commissions (SERCs) were also established in all the states. This report presents a diagnostic of the financial and operational performance of segments in the power sector value chain between adoption of the Electricity Act, 2003, and 2011, including the factors that contributed to the recent crisis.

Africa needs power - to grow its economies and enhance the welfare of its people. Power for all is still a long distance away - two thirds of the population remains without electricity and enterprises rank electricity as a top constraint to doing business. This sub-optimal situation coexists while vast energy resources remain untapped. One solution to harness these resources could be to tap into the concept of anchor load. Mining industry lends itself to the concept of anchor load as it needs power in large quantity and reliable quality to run its processes. Underpinned by a comprehensive database of mining projects between 2000 and 2020, this report explores the potential and challenges of using mining demand for power as anchor load for national power system development and expansion of electrification. This report finds that mining demand can indeed be a game-changer - an opportunity where policymakers and international community can make a difference in tapping the enormous mineral wealth of Africa for the benefit of so many people. The utilities would benefit from having mining companies as creditworthy consumers that facilitate generation and transmission investments producing economies of scale needed for large infrastructure projects, benefiting all consumers in the system. The mines would benefit from grid supply-typically priced much lower than self-supply-which allows them to focus on their core business, greatly enhancing their competitiveness. The country would benefit from more exports and tax revenues from mines, more job opportunities in local firms selling goods and services to the mines, and a higher GDP. The report estimates that mining demand for power can triple since 2000 going upto 23 GW in 2030. While South Africa will continue to be the dominant presence in mining landscape, its importance will reduce and other countries, primarily in Southern African region, will emerge as important contributers of mining demand for power. Simulations in countries with minimal power-mining interface suggests that bringing this demand explicitly into the power planning process can ensure more investments in both grid and off-grid power systems and potentially superior service delivery outcomes for mines as well as communities. These opportunities can also be attractive investment destinations for private sector. However, there are also risks and institutional roadblocks in power-mining integration - addressing many of them and employing risk mitigation mechanism are within the control of policymakers.

This World Bank review of India s power sector assesses state-wise progress in implementing the government s reform agenda two decades after the liberalization of India s economy and a decade after the passage of the forward-looking Electricity Act of 2003 (EA). It examines the performance of the sector along the following dimensions, drawing on in-depth background papers achievements in access, the financial and operational performance of utilities, governance, private participation, and the coverage and targeting of domestic user subsidies. Despite considerable progress in implementing the EA mandates and associated policies over the past decade, the report shows that sector finances remain weak. After-tax losses in 2011 were equivalent to nearly 17 percent of India s gross fiscal deficit and around 0.7 percent of GDP; they were concentrated in the distribution segment. Twenty years after the initiation of reforms, an inefficient, loss-making power sector and inadequate and unreliable power supply are major constraints to India s growth, inclusion, job creation, and aspirations for middle-income country status. This report shows that achieving sector outcomes is linked closely to the degree to which each state has implemented the EA. Key reforms mandated by the EA have still not been implemented in full, with progress in promoting competition lagging furthest behind. Further, multiple institutions with diffuse accountability have undermined the sector s commercial orientation: state governments are a major presence with a generally detrimental impact on utility operations; the regulatory environment has not sufficiently pushed utilities to improve performance; and, the flow of liquidity from lenders has limited the pressure on discoms to improve performance and on state governments to allow tariff increases. An important contribution of this report is its forthright recognition that poor power sector performance in India is rooted in distribution inefficiencies and limited accountability. This leads the authors to conclude with recommendations directed at these specific aspects in order to improve service delivery and other metrics of sector performance, put the sector on a financially sustainable path, and help ensure that power is no longer a bottleneck for growth."

The welfare implications of safe water and sanitation cannot be overstated. The economic gains from provision of improved services to millions of unserved Africans in enormous. The international adoption of Millennium Development Goals brought the inadequacies of service provision sharply into focus. With only 58% and 31% enjoying access to water and sanitation services respectively, Sub-Saharan Africa is the only continent that is off-track in achieving the MDGs in 2015. The problem is compounded by the fact that a rigorous and credible baseline did not exist on coverage to improved water and sanitation and resources required to meet the MDGs. This book aims to contribute to this gap by collecting a wealth of primary and secondary information to present the most up-to-date and comprehensive quantitative snapshot of water and sanitation sectors. The book evaluates the challenges to the water and sanitation sectors within the urban and rural areas and deepen our understanding of drivers of coverage expansion in the context of financing, institutional reforms, and efficiency improvements. Finally, the book establishes the investment needs for water and sanitation with a target of meeting the MDGs and compares with the existing financing envelopes, disaggregated by proportions that can be recouped by efficiency gains and net financing gaps. The directions for the future draw on lessons learned from best practices and present the menu of choices available to African countries. There is no recipe book that neatly lays out the possible steps the country should adopt to enhance coverage and quality of service. The challenges differ to a significant extent among African countries and solutions must be tailored to individual national or regional conditions.

This report is an output of the technical assistance activity carried out over 2008-2010 to Alternative Energy Promotion Center (AEPC), which is the nodal renewable energy agency of Nepal. This study has been designed to establish a monitoring system for AEPC to continually measure the results of the renewable energy programs against the targets and to organize an evaluation system that measures the impact of micro-hydro installations on rural livelihoods. Given AEPC s highly visible role, the need to develop a system that provides information on a wide range of technical, operational, and financial parameters is similarly high. This study developed a robust yet simple M and E framework for all the programs of AEPC that is focused on the needs of the decision-makers, as well as the interests of the relevant stakeholders. The integrated M and E system encompasses all of AEPC s programs in micro-hydro, solar, biomass, improved water mills, and biogas, and builds its capacity to execute it. The focus has been to develop performance indicators across the entire causal chain from project intervention to on-the-ground impacts. The M and E framework incorporates not only the activities undertaken and the outputs but also the impact on the beneficiaries which is critical to gain a better perspective of the impact of the interventions and to support future planning processes and decision-making. The final impacts of electrification on households and businesses are evaluated using a primary household and enterprise survey. A wide range of outcomes including quality of lighting, income generation, health, education, fertility, women s empowerment, and greenhouse gas emissions reduction are considered. AEPC is now equipped with not only the state-of-the-art monitoring system but also with a trained staff to sustainably manage and add to the system, as required."

The mining industry could play a key role in Africa's energy sector, since it requires power in large quantity and reliable quality to run its processes. The integration of mining with power system development, with appropriate risk mitigation mechanisms, could bring a win-win solution to utilities, mines, and people at large.