A new approach to the maintenance of infrastructure

• Author: Fabio Daneri
• Position: University of New York Tirana
• Pages: 60-66

ISSN 2410-3918 Academic Journal of Business, Administration, Law and Social Sciences Vol 1 No 1

Acces online at www.iipccl.org IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania March 2015

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A new approach to the maintenance of infrastructure

Fabio Daneri

University of New York Tirana

Abstract

Although maintenance is an important part for the life of an infrastructure, it does not represent

a topic where policy makers and researchers focus, being the construction of infrastructure

more interesting and attractive than the maintenance. is paper propose a new approach to be

implemented in the framework of development assistance projects, where an endowment fund

could be le by the donor to the recipient government, in order to generate interests which could

cover at least part of the cost of maintenance. It would be interesting to explore the possibility to

cover material costs, since the costs concerning human resources in maintenance might be covered

by the recipient government, through its technicians and management personnel. Of course, that

would represent a big change, since from the beginning of the projects; the donor government

should take into consideration what are the main costs for maintenance, since the costs should

be covered by the donor itself when the project is other. at would represent a big innovation,

since today donors are starting to construct infrastructure without knowing how to cover the

infrastructure costs, since recipient government normally lack the resources to implement the

necessary infrastructure. at’s what the paper aims at: to provide the theoretical possibility for

a big change for the maintenance of infrastructure, by generating the resources and the interest

which is necessary to focus on the oen forgotten issue of maintenance.

Keywords: maintenance, infrastructure, development, projects, foundation, maintenance costs,

interests.

Introduction

Infrastructure is necessary for the provision of public services and for the stimulation of

growth as well. Roads, hospitals, schools, water supply systems are all necessary for the

provision of crucial public services and also to contribute to the more general purpose of

growth.

e attention dedicated to infrastructure is normally very high in developing countries

and on development assistance projects. is is mainly due to the above-mentioned factors

and to a relative lack of infrastructure in developing countries compared to developed

countries, but very oen also to a general necessity of an adequate visibility in developing

contexts. Politicians and development assistance managers are in fact interested in

providing visible solutions to community problems, being that a concrete sign of eort in

front of both voters and tax-payers.

On the other hand, the attention given to infrastructure is not very oen balanced by

a similar attention to the problem of maintenance. Infrastructures in fact are normally

handed over to national and local governments which very oen lack the necessary

nancial means to take care of them. In addition to that, donors normally lack access to

fundamental nancial information and data concerning national and local governments