In this series on infrastructure in Africa, we'll follow up on my two previous posts (see list at the bottom of this post for links) by unpacking the "infrastructure service delivery path".
A virtuous circle
The infrastructure service delivery path starts with the basics - plan it, build it, operate it. An easy, virtuous circle, especially if you're an engineer. However, if you're a public servant responsible to a town, a city, a country, a group of countries or even a continent, you need to be thinking from the perspective of the people who will use the infrastructure.
Why do we need this infrastructure?
Is it to facilitate and enable investment? Trade? Commercial development? Environmental protection? Job creation? Economic growth?
This "why" question is the most important one in the infrastructure discussion, because it determines the purpose of the infrastructure and therefore the expected long term outcomes, results and impacts the infrastructure will have. It is important for planners and those responsible for public purses to reflect on the purpose of the infrastructure. This could well inform how it gets procured.
Let's take a ridiculous example, for the sake of discussion
For instance, let's take a totally fictional example of a bridge connecting an island with the mainland, and let's suspend disbelief long enough to suppose that the island has been really disconnected from the mainland, say, since the continents first started to move away from each other.
It would certainly change the islanders' lives, to have a bridge, wouldn't it? They'd be able to get their crops to mainland markets easier, they'd be able to access more potential customers, they'd be able to access cultural facilities and events, socialise with people on the mainland - all fantastic improvements to their socio-economic quality of life. The engineers and construction companies are thrilled at the idea, because they'd be able to design and build it.
But rats might get onto the island for the first time. Or feral cats, which would kill the birdlife and other small animals (okay, maybe they'd have a go at the rats). And perhaps the people would get access to rough bars and motorcycle gangs they'd never experienced before. It could really change the way of life on the island.
And what if the bridge is to facilitate a coltan mine on the island getting its product to market? (I doubt we'd find a coltan mine on an island, but just go with me on this.) Wouldn't it make sense to make it a toll bridge so those mining trucks pay for the bridge in some way, since they'd be profiting from the sale of their mineral?
That's not a real-life case study - it's just an imaginary example to show that it's important that those with the vision of "why" the infrastructure also consult properly on the range of potential impacts of the infrastructure being proposed.
Clearly, some conversation is needed
So - we think about the purpose of the infrastructure first, and how it fits into the local, provincial/state/national/regional/continental strategy first before we get hyper-enthusiastic and approve the expenditure of a couple of billion dollars we don't have on a 3 kilometre, six-lane highway bridge with an iconic design which will attract photographers from the world over.
What's it going to be?
Okay, we decided it's not going to be a vanity project, and we worked through our existing growth and development strategy, national development plan, or other overarching guide, to identify parameters, guidelines and objectives under the policy framework we've agreed as governing institutions.
The conceptual stage - who decides?
By this point we've also realised it's pretty important to get a lot more people involved in the discussion. Like, a LOT.
Here a just a few of the probably interested parties in this infrastructure initiative:
- the line ministry in government responsible for transport
- the finance ministry
- the health ministry (remember the rats)
- the social affairs ministry (remember the motorcycle gangs)
- organised labour
- civil society - local non-governmental organisations (NGOs), community based organisations, and perhaps international NGOs if there is some potentially threatened flora or fauna on that island
- local business associations
- the people on the island, and the people who are going to be trading more with the people from the island
So that group of four in the old ClipArt shot is going to grow to a much bigger constituency, and fast. The views of that constituency need to be channelled to a workable view on what can be achieved within those parameters, guidelines and objectives. And that is where leadership and strong institutions come to the fore. They funnel those views, desires, wants, visions and dreams into a workable set of practical inputs to the planning and design process.
Someone has to be accountable, in terms of the strategy and policies.
The planning stage, now that we've figured out - for now - who's accountable
So we know it's going to be a bridge. Will it be a highway bridge? Two lanes only? What do we know about the water body it's crossing? I hope for the sake of this example it's not like the sea next to the Alaskan town 
Also, what kind of vehicles are going to cross it? How tough do we have to make the surface? Are there any local bridgebuilders in our town/state/country? Would we have to get foreign experts to come and design and build this bridge? Hey, wait a second, if we have to pay for foreign experts, that would mean we'd have to pay them in foreign currency, and...
...we've only got three months of foreign currency reserves in our central bank, we're indebted to our eyeballs to all of our International Cooperating Partners (ICPs - remember?), we're in regular discussion with the International Monetary Fund about a possible bailout, our fiscus gets only about 10% from tax payments, including income tax, value-added tax and corporate taxes and the rest comes from the generosity and concessional (low interest rate) loans of the international community.
So where are we going to get the money?
Let's go to the private sector!
That won't work, since the private sector is going to look at the country's ability to repay whatever loan it would make - and we've just gone through that.
So - where are we going to get the money?
The long and the short of it is - under those circumstances, we can't. But luckily, this is a fictional example, and it's also set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
And now, to implement
You can see how quickly the question morphs from Why, to What, to How? Let's not forget the little Who, who is eventually going to use this bridge and probably end up paying for it somehow even if he doesn't know it.
This example would be really different at this stage if we were talking about getting water or electricity services to the house. The householder would be acutely aware of paying for the infrastructure service!
Sleeves up, some robust planning
We churn those parameters, guidelines and objectives around, consult with the planners and designers on what's possible for how much money, start talking with potential financial partners about who might be willing to foot how much of the construction costs. And the operation and maintenance costs. And who would do what of those activities, and how they would get paid. Would this be a chance to train up some local construction companies? Would it, as in Senegal in the mid-2000s when they were actively liberalising their electricity sector, be an opportunity to incentivise some local investors to become infrastructure owners and service providers?
History we don't want to go back to
Historically, nobody was willing to talk about who would foot the bill for infrastructure operation and maintenance costs. Donors would pay for "stuff" to get built (the kind you can cut ribbons for), and would leave all the less glamorous day to day running costs to the government. The money for that would come out of some mystery government support pot. But since it generally didn't, the regular monthly costs to clean the surface, paint the lines, repair the concrete and make sure the pilings were in good condition just didn't get paid. So the infrastructure crumbled.
That was then, this is now
African governments have come a long way since those early post-colonial days, and have built up much more sophisticated and effective capability to plan and manage their finances. Before you all jump on me, yes, there are 54 African countries and some do it (much) better than others.
So how do we frame this into a workable way of thinking?
Here's one way of encapsulating the infrastructure service delivery path.
Which helps us to consider....
Using this as a framework, we can start to take into account some more nuanced considerations.
Service levels
Take policies on service levels, for example. In electricity, this could mean, for instance - who gets a 3-phase, 60 ampere household connection? In water, who has to walk less than 500m to get water for the house? Who has an indoor toilet? Who gets a flush toilet? These are service level considerations.
Performance management
Who's responsible for managing the delivery of the infrastructure services, and checking that it meets standards? By the way, there was a raft of fascinating work done in crowded slums in the realm of community report cards. I can imagine how the blockchain could empower that kind of performance monitoring!
Good performance management would be rooted in a consumer focus and have clear lines of accountability.
Monitoring and evaluation would be done at each level - strategic, planning and operational.
And just to check that services are being delivered well, the infrastructure service delivery could be benchmarked to other similar operations elsewhere in the world. That's harder than it sounds.
Affordability
Infrastructure services simply have to be affordable over the long term not only to the consumer of the services, but also to the supplier. If the supplier, be it public or private, cannot afford to deliver the services, first to go is usually quality (in terms of parameters monitored by regulatory authorities) but fast on its heels is quantity (by that I mean availability to the consumer).
Conclusion
This is one way of looking at the infrastructure service delivery path to allow for the possibility of feedback. Feedback from consumers on the quality of service they are receiving, feedback from the entities responsible for running the facility on factors making it easier or harder to operate and maintain, feedback from regulators to policy-makers on improvements to policies, all leading back to the original conceptual phase which was based on certain assumptions and perspectives at the time...which may have changed dramatically in the interim. Think building standards before and after Hurricane Andrew and the 1985 Mexico City earthquake.
The one constant we see is that the context always changes.
Leadership and institutions cannot manage infrastructure service delivery in a static way. They have to approach it in a dynamic, systemic way which acknowledges the extraordinary innovations which we are seeing in our lifetimes.
The good looking images are from Pixabay, some are ClipArt from over a decade ago, and the rest I drew (badly) myself some years ago. Thank goodness for Pixabay.
https://steemit.com/africa/@kiligirl/african-infrastructure-development-a-nutcracker-suite-part-1-of-i-m-not-sure-how-many-yet