Should unabated negative urban sprawl be used to describe the ongoing reality of many cities in the developing world, the massively overburdened landscapes of the future epitomised by intensely degraded living environments will almost certainly require new and more derogatory terms to be coined.

Albeit ambiguously defined, never before has there been more demand-based opportunity in energy, utilities, transport, sanitation, housing, health, educational facilities and telecommunications throughout the global south.  Yet while the infrastructure sector has become an increasingly recognized component of ensuring socioeconomic sustainability – complemented by encouraging broader growth patterns – overall aims are unclear and awkwardly adapted to fit within confusingly led development strategies.

Indeed, developing world metropolitan economies are highly complex and fragile environments customarily drowned in intense bureaucracy and external market pressures rarely conducive to the application of risk-averse investment objectives.  As a result, the capital-intensive project goals that characterize these models continually remain prone to costing shortfalls, paralyses and a myriad of other bottlenecks.  Paradoxically, governments, multilaterals, the private sector and other financial interests still all want their piece of the pie – particularly in high-deficit areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Latin America – owing to the simple fact that infrastructure is hugely lucrative, regardless of whether aims are accomplished or not.

The sector is mostly governed domestically where projects are executed arbitrarily under negligible supervision, with legal obligations to detail and disclose information being either non-existent or poorly enforced.  As recently admitted by the IMF, domestic and borrowed money may often be spent without a clear understanding of outcomes and other country-specific idiosyncrasies; the Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics 2020 report also estimated that up to US$2.4 trillion risks being lost annually to corruption, management and other execution inefficiencies by the end of the decade.

Furthermore, infrastructure is highly politicised – very well exemplified by the hazy dealings during the procurement process where profits dominate and project goals often fail to consider urban social needs, exacerbated by heavy-handed measures to achieve intended purposes.  Here in Brazil, for example, in addition to regular reporting of capital wastage on a number of large-scale infrastructure and urbanization plans, the recent mass evictions of Rio de Janeiro shanty (favela) residents located on land ‘claimed’ for development in preparation for the 2016 Olympic Games (combined with negligible compensatory packages) have served to demonstrate where the real priorities lie.

So how is this issue confronted?  The logic is theoretically simple: if the construction of a new road frees up congested areas and boosts spatial equality at the same time as enabling base of the pyramid business and other economic interests to thrive, the project should be viewed as a success (despite the direct benefits being difficult to trace statistically).  However, much will depend on whether there is clarity in budgetary planning; all local interests are actively engaged; plans go ahead according to original intentions; and there is a calibrated management strategy that is fully accountable from start to finish.

With the late 2011 Transparency International “Bribe Payers Index” reporting that public works contracts and construction scored the lowest out of all of the prominent sectors in the world, new models and schools of thought which encourage more ethical practices are gaining some headway.  As seen in my recent interview with Christiaan Portman, senior advisor at the global anti-corruption organisation, the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST) is one mechanism that is actively challenging the notion that public works projects should not be identified, procured and executed visibly in the public domain – with several successful pilots already complete and comprehensive evidence of the fact that many of the preconceived obstacles are surmountable.  It is initiatives such as this that will secure a more comfortable environment for both philanthropic and the emerging impact investment sectors to thrive and not be continually hampered unnecessarily, as is very much the case today.

With the wheels in motion, the real challenge now is instilling and maintaining a culture whereby decision makers focus on the real implications of projects being undertaken while moving away from ideologies that benefit the ‘quiet few’.  If it is not obvious already, the consequences of not following a strict path of sustained growth in this area will be catastrophic – particularly in many of the already vulnerable urban regions of the planet.

Download the full fez ta pronto 2012 PDF report and ask any of your questions to Ruban Selvanayagam on the global affordable housing project by clicking here