Provision of Urban Environmental Infrastructure Services Issues and Strategies

1
Provision of Urban Environmental Infrastructure
Services(Issues and Strategies)

• Vilas Nitivattananon, Ph.D.
• Urban Environmental Management
• Asian Institute of Technology

2
Main Topics

• Introduction
• Issues
• Institutional aspects
• Alternative strategies

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Introduction - Infrastructure

• Public infrastructure is defined as those
  services derived from the set of public works
  traditionally supported by the public sector to
  enhance private sector production and to allow
  for household consumption
• This includes services such as roads, mass
  transportation, water systems, sewer systems,
  solid waste management, drainage and flood
  protection, electric installations, and
  telecommunications

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Introduction - Sustainable Systems

• Goals
• Improve quality of life and alleviate
  consequences of poverty
• Promote economic productivity and growth
• Protection of environment
• Reinforce the effectiveness of municipal
  governance
• Appropriate decisions
• What infrastructure is demanded and how will it
  be produced?
• How will the investments and life-cycle costs be
  financed?
• What institutions will be used to deliver
  services?

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Introduction Management Functions

• Goal and policy formulation (conceptual planning)
• Long-term planning (pre-planning)
• Investment planning and programming (detailed
  planning/design)
• Implementation of the plans (investment/constructi
  on)
• Operation and maintenance
• Monitoring and evaluation

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Issues - Overview

• Status of achievements
• Inadequate infrastructure capacity in expanding
  urban areas results in serious constraints on
  (environmentally sustainable) economic growth and
  on poverty reduction
• Challenges
• Inefficiency of operation
• Inadequate maintenance
• Financial inefficiency and fiscal drain
• Unresponsiveness to user demand
• Neglect of the poor
• Neglect of environment

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Issues - Water Supply

• Cities throughout Asia report shortages of
  sources for raw water, and infrastructure for
  provision of household, industrial, and
  commercial water supply.
• Meeting the problem of water for human use will
  require application of macroplanning policies to
  improve the allocation of water among competing
  interests, and better microcontrols on, and
  technology for, water use within households,
  industries and commerce.
• Focused technological alternatives, analysis of
  costs and benefits on a broad scale, and
  consensus building through various forms of
  public and stakeholder participatory techniques
  are required to arrive at politically successful
  solutions.

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Issues - Sanitation

• In Asia, less than 60 of urban population had
  access to adequate sanitation and about 1/3 was
  connected to sewer systems.
• Where sewerage collection existed, about 90 of
  the wastewater was discharged w/o treatment
• Conveyance systems are often inadequately
  designed and poorly maintenance clogging from
  solid waste causing flooding with bad water
  quality
• Some cities suffer from persistent drainage
  problem related to monsoon flooding drainage
  and flooding may be of greater concern than
  sanitation especially among upper class of
  population

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Issues - Solid Waste

• The major urban centers in developing countries
  of Asia generate over 1 million tons of SW
  annually, less than half is transported to
  disposal
• Inadequate SWM gives rise to many environmental
  problems from disposal to open water, leaching
  into groundwater, production of air pollution,
  and from spread of insects and disease vectors
• Pilot efforts at waste minimization and refuse
  recovery are underway in a number of locations
  throughout Asia composting, recycling, and
  other community base techniques.

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Issues Transport and Air Pollution

• A key challenge in transport planning is
  identifying measures that are technically sound
  and acceptable to politicians and the public
• Transport or mobile sources contribute the
  majority of most pollutants in urban areas,
  particularly when viewed in terms of human
  exposure
• Environmental health risks due to inadequate
  waste management infrastructure are numerous in
  urban area

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Issues Institutional

• Deficiencies
• Poor coordination between government agencies and
  with private sector
• Poor internal organization and management
  structure
• Deficient monitoring of sectoral performance
• Low morale among local government staff
• Funding to meet capital and operational needs is
  often deficient with insufficient cost recovery
  mechanisms

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Institutional Aspects Government
Responsibilities

• Which level of government should be responsible
  for service delivery?
• A clear delineation of responsibilities across
  levels of government is essential for effective
  service delivery
• Although central government is responsible for
  infrastructure investment in most countries, the
  best strategy is to allocate some
  responsibilities to each of local government
• A number of factors influence the degree to which
  local vs.. central governments should play a role
  in service delivery

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Institutional Aspects - Decentralization

• Devolution of authority to local governments
• Transfer of authority and responsibilities for
  service delivery from central to local
  governments
• Deconcentration of central government ministry
  staff
• Movement of ministry offices to regional or local
  levels
• Regional or local officials are able to make many
  basic service delivery decisions
• Others
• Privatization, public sector companies, public
  authorities

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Institutional Aspects Decentralization

• Requirements for effective devolution
• Existing government structure
• Structure of other institutions and necessary
  labor skills
• Geographic scope of benefits
• Sufficient authority (legal ability and
  institutional capacity) to raise revenues and
  retain them at the local level for financing
  service delivery
• Public sector companies and service delivery
  authorities
• Less accountable because their linkage to public
  officials and consumers may be tenuous
• Community associations
• Responsive to users

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Institutional Aspects - Financing

• Adequate financing is necessary for sustainable
  infrastructure systems
• The role of finance is more than to ensure
  sufficient funds are in place, because financing
  schemes can affect incentives and other goals
  (such as equity)
• Willingness to pay an expression of the demand
  for service, and it is a strong-requisite for
  cost recovery because it is a measure of user
  satisfaction of a service and of the desire of
  users to contribute to its functioning
• Community factors (participation, perceived
  benefits, income, etc.)
• Service factors (alternative sources, costs,
  efficiency, etc.)

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Institutional Aspects - Financing

• Financing investments
• Government funding
• Donor financing
• Private equity financing
• Financing OM
• User fees appear to be best source of OM
  financing
• General fund contributions from the government
• Intergovernmental transfers from the central to
  local governments

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Institutional Aspects - Financing

• Factors in planning
• Demand-driven
• What costs should be covered
• Willingness to pay analysis
• Institutional/legal framework
• Accompanying measures (e.g., education and
  promotion campaigns)
• Factors in practices
• Appropriate tariff
• Optimizing costs
• Access to other sources of funding (community,
  private, subsidies/taxes, credit-loan, grants,
  etc.)
• Financial management
• Service efficiency

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Alternative Approaches Integrated and Systems
Management

• Integration for sustainability
• System elements
• Use, transport, disposal/treatment, etc.
• Aspects
• Technical, environmental, financial/economic,
  socio-cultural, institutional, and
  legal/political
• Stakeholders
• Central/local authorities, NGOs/CBOs, users,
  private formal/informal sectors, and donor
  agencies
• Other urban systems
• Drainage, energy, agriculture, etc.

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Alternative Approaches Directions of Reform

• Institutional development
• Administrative decentralization
• Organizational capacity building
• Improved management functions
• Private sector participation
• Appropriate form of public-private partnership
• Mechanisms for public regulation and control
• User participation
• Community-based service provision
• Decentralizing government-based process of
  management

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Alternative Approaches Strategies/Actions

• Delivering infrastructure services to meet users
  demands
• This must drive decisions such as what to
  deliver, what technologies to employ, and how
  prices should be set
• Demands differ widely across cities, countries,
  and industries along dimensions of accessibility,
  capacity, quality, price, etc.
• Infrastructure is best used to accommodate
  economic activity
• Greatest effect on economic growth when a minimum
  complement of services is available
• Improved infrastructure must come from increased
  efficiency of the services
• Deliver services at the lowest possible life
  cycle costs for society

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Alternative Approaches Strategies/Actions

• Adequate service delivery cannot occur without a
  proper financing system
• Satisfactory system requires that services are
  paid
• Costs can be lowered and demands more effectively
  met by integrating competition into service
  delivery
• Private sector participation through devolved
  governments
• The consequences of delivery must be fully
  considered
• Environmental standards can be achieved with
  effective service delivery