This is an excerpt of the press release.

"Africa's Infrastructure: A Time for Transformation", a study recently conducted in 24 African countries, shows that the poor state of infrastructure in Sub Saharan Africa – its electricity, water, roads, and information and communications technology (ICT) – cuts national economic growth by 2 percentage points every year and reduces business productivity by as much as 40 percent. This study argues that well functioning infrastructure is essential to Africa’s economic performance and that improving inefficiencies and reducing waste could result in major improvements in African’s lives.

The 2008 Open Budget Index (OBI) has been released by the International Budget Partnership on 1 February 2008. The OBI has been constructed in 2006 and “evaluates the quantity and type of information available to the public in a country’s budget documents” according to generally accepted good practice criteria for public sector management.