【正文】
where sufficient petition does not materialize. These reforms aim at accelerating service growth and innovation ,making production more efficient, and increasing responsiveness to differing user needs and payment capabilities. Gaps typically remain ,however, between what service providers are prepared to do solely on mercial grounds and what governments consider necessary from broader development perspectives. Many rural areas and, to a lesser extent, lowine urban areas, continue to be excluded. Subsidies may be justified to narrow these gaps. Loosely speaking, a subsidy exists when the costs incurred in supplying a service are not fully recovered from the revenues raised by selling this service, the difference being met by other customers in the same or related industries or by governments(Wad dams Price 1 2020).The economic rationale for subsidy is based on the existence of consumption and production externalities, work externalities, and scale economies. Also, access to these services at affordable prices is considered essential to enable the rural population to participate equitably and effectively in a modern society(Serra 2020). Rural subsidy practices In the context of marketoriented economic policies, subsidies for rural infrastructure services aim at developing sustainable markets for the private provision of these services. Subsidies are designed to turn socially desirable investments that are not profitable by themselves into mercially viable undertakings. Projects that are not demonstrably good for society at large or are unlikely to ever stand on their own do not justify subsidy support and are seldom undertaken. Good subsidy practice mits all participants to contribute to financing the provision of services:? ?Service providers invest and risk their own resources to set up the facilities and provide the services during a given time under specified conditions. ?Government subsidies help service providers meet some investment and startup costs. Subsidies are designed to reduce access barriers to which lowine groups are especially sensitive, such as initial connection, equipment, or installation charges. ?Customers pay for the use of services at least as much as is needed to meet operating and maintenance costs. Where domestic installations are involved, customers are also required to pay part of the investment cost, as a confirmation of economic demand for