Infrastructure maintenance in LAC : the costs of neglect and options for improvement

The objectives of this paper are threefold: (a) to bring to the attention the dimension of LAC's infrastructure maintenance problems; (b) to document and analyze the institutional, technical, policy and operational changes needed to improve infrastructure maintenance; and (c) to identify the role of lending agencies in improving maintenance in LAC. The paper deals with the roads, power, and water and sanitation sectors separately. The road sector was selected for transport because it is by far the most predominant mode and because the study's findings and recommendations for the power and water sectors would apply in general to railways, ports, water transport and airports, which are also revenue-earning public utilities. More detailed discussions and supporting data are provided in three separate sectoral volumes and the fourth volume on routine maintenance by contract. In this paper, maintenance is conceived as that set of activities which enables systems to deliver efficiently the outputs for which they were designed. Therefore, maintenance covers the upkeep not only of the physical infrastructure but also of the management systems and institutional capacity necessary to obtain the maximum benefits from this infrastructure.