The implementation of infrastructure and services in developing countries is often not particularly easy for companies or institutions from outside the country. And maintaining them isn’t easy either.
There are several important factors to consider when working toward economic, social, and health development in each region.
The first is the existence of a social cohesion structure. “There must be at least a basic social and political structure with a hierarchy and codes of conduct. The political structure must organize resources, distribute them, and promote a development strategy, stability, and future vision,” explains Ignacio Calatayud, president of HumanCoop, an NGO that works in development cooperation in Africa. Their working philosophy approaches community health through a One Health strategy, which aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals, and ecosystems through training local personnel and building infrastructure.
“Political instability, corruption, and insecurity create obstacles that make it difficult to operate in a country,” says Calatayud.
Secondly, there must be a communication and energy infrastructure network around areas with water reserves and certain easily exploitable resources. “Cooperation between states to foster development in this area is important. Collaboration between different institutions—from the smallest local governments to the World Bank—is also key to supporting the maintenance of these structures, which attract investment to their countries,” affirms the president of HumanCoop.
The third important factor is adaptation to the local culture. NGOs like UPlanet serve as a bridge between technical knowledge—engineering, in this case—and local authorities and funding entities. “We must adapt our knowledge to the local culture. When a Western structure is introduced, there has to be someone with local knowledge to determine whether that technology can be implemented,” explains José Matías Fernández, president of UPlanet.
Volunteers who support organizations like HumanCoop or UPlanet are essential in maintaining water purification plants, self-sustaining agricultural systems, health centers, schools, and more. But without qualified local human capital, those infrastructures or services will fall into decline.
Recently, volunteers from the Sacyr Foundation—mainly engineers—participated in a cooperation project in Bir Mogrein (Mauritania, Africa).
Their goal was to help repair the town’s desalination plant, which is the community’s source of drinking water, improve the electrical installations of health and water infrastructure, develop a sanitation project at one of the schools, and launch a pilot project for drip irrigation using desalinated water—laying the groundwork for the region’s future agricultural project.
Ithar Association's cancer facility under development in Nouackchott, Mauritania
In this regard, a significant obstacle to working toward prosperous infrastructure in developing countries is the lack of human resources capable of managing the technologies, materials, or construction and maintenance techniques. That’s why continuous local human capital training is so important—and why conditions must be created to prevent brain drain.
The lack of cohesion among Western governments often hampers development cooperation in essential areas such as health, food, or industry in underdeveloped countries. “The globalization of Western ideas is declining. Governments are increasingly reluctant to collaborate. Development cooperation and humanitarian aid are two sides of the same coin, but they are not the same,” explains the president of HumanCoop. “We must help these countries, but at the same time, we must sow seeds for future progress. Otherwise, the work you’ve done today won’t be useful for the future, it’ll be just a short-term fix” Calatayud concludes.
