maintenance of wastewater infrastructure in developing countries

They say "What will not be maintained, does not need to be built". Why is it that wastewater infrastructure in most developing countries are poorly designed and poorly constructed whilethe ones which were properly designed and nicely constructed are neglected and overtime become delapidatedand cant perform the intended purpose anymore. In fact wastewater treatment is actually neglected by most goverments in developing countries.

3 Answers

1. The way I see and experienced it is that developing countries lack appropriate maintenance programs as well as under-qualified in contract management. These two issues make it even worse. the best approach is to move to Public-Private Partnership contracts like BOT where capacity building can be planned and implemented during the life of the infrastructure projects when in service.

   1 Comment

   1. Very true Sir, We have sustainability, coordination and proper planning challenges in LDC.

2. Many development countries like cheap labor, too much corner cutting in implementing several interventions, Politicians also do contribute to this cause. Most of Politicians would like to start their own initiatives even though they know for sure that they will stay in Office only for 5 years or less. This is the biggest challenge we have in development countries for instance most of the time spend time campaigning not for the development agenda. Solution is to increase advocacy and lobbying of policy implementation.

3. In my experience, asset management and maintenance are poorly understood, if at all, in developing countries. In one, the government secretary accused me of inventing projects when I included AM in the capital program! http://felixschrodinger.wordpress.com/2010/11/13/asset-management-planning-for-developing-countries/