Despite recent rapid growth and povertyreduction, the South Asia Region (SAR) continues to sufferfrom a combination of insufficient economic growth, slowurbanization, and huge infrastructure gaps that togethercould jeopardize future progress. It is also home to thelargest pool of individuals living under the poverty line ofany region, coupled with some of the fastest demographicgrowth rates of any region. Between 1990 and 2010, thenumber of people living on less than US$1.25 a day in SouthAsia decreased by only 18 percent, while the population grewby 42 percent. If South Asia hopes to meet its developmentgoals and not risk slowing down, or even halting, growth andpoverty alleviation, it is essential to make closing itshuge infrastructure gap a priority. But the challenges onthis front are monumental. Many people living in SAR remainunconnected to a reliable electrical grid, a safe watersupply, sanitary sewerage disposal, and sound roads andtransportation networks. This region requires significantinfrastructure investment (roads, rails, power, watersupply, sanitation, and telecommunications) not only toensure basic service delivery and enhance the quality oflife of its growing population, but also to avoid a possiblebinding constraint on economic growth owing to thesubstantial infrastructure gap.
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