Why is it that infrastructure gets short-shrift in development conversations? It isn’t sexy. It isn’t hot. It isn’t in vogue. In a sense, it is overwhelming in terms of the scale of the problem. And perhaps even more overwhelming is that to get anything accomplished in terms of infrastructure development, you need to work with the government, a daunting task in many developing nations.
But, if a country doesn’t have good (or at least sufficient) infrastructure, how can it develop? If you don’t have a national road network, a national train system, sufficient airport infrastructure, or functioning ports, how can you move goods from “farm to market” and then from domestic market to international market? If you don’t have consistent electricity, how can you perform surgery? If you don’t have clean water, how can you prevent illnesses in newborns? If you don’t have proper sanitation facilities, how can you ensure that girls stay in school?
Let’s look at roads, for instance, a key element to any country’s infrastructure and integral to delivery of products and services. With the sorry state of most roads on the African continent, when a health emergency arises, it is virtually impossible to get to the hospital. And what if it is a more minor incident that requires sending samples to the hospital and then returning again to the hospital to pick up the results? Again, a huge expenditure, in terms of both time and money.
The organization Riders for Health, operating in eight sub-Saharan African countries, is a health solution provider, yes, but it is also a solution to serious infrastructure woes. Striving to transform health delivery in Africa, Riders for Health aims for all health workers to “have access to reliable transportation so they can reach the most isolated people with regular and predictable health care.” When Andrea and Barry Coleman, the founders, saw graveyards of motorcycles all around the continent, they decided to do something. Why not ensure that these motorcycles lived longer? So they began to train local health workers in simple checks and preventative maintenance, keeping the motorcycles on the road for a longer life. Now, Riders for Health is using motorcycles to do the work normally reserved for serious medical vehicles – both cars and ambulances – and as a tool to circumvent a lack of proper infrastructure. Voila. They have created a courier system for medical samples in rural African villages.
And what about electricity for that matter? Josh Ruxin, a public health and economic development expert, writes in the Huffington Post, “The difference between life and death may sometimes come down to good lighting.” Imagine being in surgery and the lights go out. “Life support systems, X-ray machines, even simple lighting to aid diagnosis and to help you feel safe and remain calm, none of those things you normally take for granted are available. It’s a very different situation, and without lighting and power, doctors can’t operate and can’t accurately assess the emergence of complications.” To put it bluntly, lighting is a lifesaver. It powers hospitals. In the long run, these hospitals then need to be put on the grid, provided with a consistent and reliable source of energy. And only the government can do that. But in the short term, social enterprises such as Tough Stuff and Greenlight Planet, are selling ultra-affordable solar LED lights, providing solutions to the electricity woes in the developing world.
So while on the macro scale there needs to be a master plan to solve infrastructure woes – from the top down (I know, you think I’m a neoconservative, but I’m not), social entrepreneurs are working in parallel and even collaboratively with the government. The challenge of the social entrepreneurs: scale. Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) is doing a fabulous job of this – first making a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative to, over the next five years, “scale its business incubation services to create 25 new infrastructure development enterprises for under-served communities. These enterprises will aid a combined population of over 200,000 people, bringing water, sanitation, renewable energy and other desperately needed services. From $1.25 million in initial investment, these entrepreneurs will generate $5 million per year in economic activity and will help bring basic services to struggling communities,” according to their website.
This all leads me to wonder, how can we position infrastructure to pull at the heartstrings and pique the interest of donors in the same way that images of orphans of HIV/AIDS has? That’s the $1 million question.
Photo courtesy Riders for Health
akintunde disu Said,
February 18, 2010 @ 12:29 pm
social entrepreneurs i hope will soon form social buisnesses where the aim is to invest long term in the development of the world bottom up one world one people , united in wealth and health .
it will be interesting to see how legally this can be be achieved , it is a shame that UN spends all its time fighting or stopping fights and no time working to correct the terrible international and sovereign laws in place .
if we are to abolish poverty we have to first become our brothers keepers if we dont our children shall bear the burden .
Muhammed Yunnus in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech spoke beautifully about how such buisnesses could possibly arise .
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2006/yunus-lecture-en.html
Jerryanne Said,
February 21, 2010 @ 5:03 pm
Adrienne, infrastructure is one of those things that most of us in the US and other rich countries take for granted. We fail to realize the impact of lack of roads, light, electricity on the health and economy of a community.
Inadequate infrastructure is an indirect killer and a contributor to poverty. Millions of people die each year around the world because they are unable to get emergency medical care. And basic goods and services are more expensive in remote communities because they are so hard to access. If we could begin to quantify the ripple effect of poor infrastructure, it could certainly get the international community to pay more attention to this issue. Visual and statistical comparisons as well as true stories should be used to create a sense of urgency.
Jeanne Heydecker Said,
February 23, 2010 @ 6:35 am
In addition, telecom infrastructure can play a large role in pulling people out of poverty by providing access to e-learning, e-health, e-government, even e-democracy.
One thing developing markets have, because there is little to no infrastructure, they have no pre-existing stakeholders in traditional infrastructure systems with heavy investments in unsustainable business models to reach the next billion mobile phone subscribers.
The telecom industry is well known for its incredibly high energy needs and costly infrastructure deployment – there is no profit for traditional companies wanting to increase market share in rural areas.
Full disclosure: I work for VNL, a company that makes solar powered telecom infrastructure equipment that is ideal for rural markets in India, Africa, Latin America and southeast Asia. Even where there are no roads, VNL and companies like it can transform the quality of life within remote villages without forcing migration into urban areas that are considered full of additional opportunity. Many people who are forced to move find their quality of life is poorer living on the periphery of big cities in emerging markets simply because they have no marketable skills.
If you can’t get electricity or roads out to the remotest parts of the planet, telecom can still connect them to the Global Village.
bharat Said,
December 30, 2010 @ 2:23 pm
Which intelligence agency do you work for Jeanne Heydecker? Or perhaps you and your son are laying the foundation for a career with CIA? As an Indian I want to tell you Ms. Jeanne Heydecker that you are not welcome in my country. You Americans are ugly, selfish, soul-less lower forms of life who simply dont belong in my country. Arent you ashamed of exploiting our hospitality to make money?
I want to request my fellow Indians to please please please dont encourage these ugly spiritual lepers called Americans. Never trust an American like Jeanne Heydecker. Remember David Headingly? Please dont encourage or help these people.
Jeanne-Elise Heydecker Said,
January 7, 2011 @ 5:51 pm
@Bharat
What is your problem, dude? I work for an Indian company, owned by Indians. VNL is based out of Gurgaon and is part of the Shyam group of (Indian) telecom companies that employ around 1,000 Indians. I am one of the very few international staff (less than 1%).
You don’t have the right to judge me. Obviously you know of me, since you mentioned my son – nothing in this post mentions him or where I live – perhaps a disgruntled ex-employee that I fired for incompetence? This post is about infrastructure and how to use it to help the common man, not an Anti-American blog.