It therefore plays an important role in market integration and rural-urban transitions in the region as well as in the effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, both directly and indirectly. Seamless connectivity across these three sectors plays an important role in enabling countries to expand their markets, optimize exchanges and strengthen collaboration in support of sustainable development and shared prosperity. Soft infrastructure refers to legal, regulatory, procedural and other supporting policy frameworks, as well as human and institutional capacities, while hard infrastructure relates to physical networks, such as roads, railways, ports, undersea cables and cell phone masts, and transmission lines and power plants.