Un soutien appuyé malgré des effets limités : comment expliquer le paradoxe de la privatisation des infrastructures de la BM en Afrique sub-saharienne ?

Thirty years after its implementation by the World Bank (WB) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the empirical evidences point out the very mixed results privatization has produced, particularly in the infrastructures sector. Despite of this, the WB has intensified its support to infrastructures privatization in SSA. Whereas several reasons can explain the WB attitude, this paper argues that it can also be partly explained by financial motivations. Indeed, by creating important business opportunities in the infrastructure sectors, privatization is an efficient mean to satisfy the financial interest of foreign investors, notably those of the main WB donors. An empirical analysis based on 270 infrastructures privatization cases in SSA shows that foreign investors benefit more from privatization when it is supported by the WB. Moreover, the WB provides greater support to privatization in infrastructures sectors that benefit the most to those investors. Based on these results, several political recommendations are provided to increase the acceptability of privatization in SSA in order to resolve the financing problem of infrastructures development in SSA.