Measuring trends in access to modern infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa: Results from Demographic and Health Surveys

This short dissemination note provides a synthesis of key results from a recent study on access to infrastructure services in Africa. Using Demographic and Health Surveys from 22 countries that have conducted at least two such surveys between 1990 and 2005, we provide comparable estimates over time of access to electricity, piped water, flush toilets, and landline telephones. In addition to national, urban, and rural trends in access, we also provide a distributional analysis of how access rates have evolved between 1990 and 2005.