Philanthropy is a driving force in developing infrastructure in developing countries; see this post for for instances of philanthropists that are making a impact.
One may ask themselves what is infrastructure. A straightforward description of infrastructure is that it is the necessary facilities, services, and organizational structures that occur in human civilizations. Infrastructure is typically classified into either hard infrastructure or soft infrastructure. Hard infrastructure is the innovation of physical and material structures like roads, bridges, railways and harbors and so on. However, soft infrastructure is all the services that preserve the economic, health and social standards of a nation like medical facilities, schools, fire stations and police etc. Infrastructure makes it possible for nationwide and international trading, powers businesses, generates millions of employment opportunities, boosts the health of the population and safeguards countries from the steadily unpredictable environment. The importance of infrastructure is one thing that is not lost on Philippe Valahu, the president of an foundation that mobilises private financial investment in infrastructure in developing countries. For many years the organization provided nearly 250 million individuals with access to brand new or improved infrastructure and developed approximately 250,000 long-term jobs, improving the socio-economic progression of numerous regions throughout the world.
The development of brand-new infrastructure, the upkeep of existing infrastructure and the replacement of impaired infrastructure is frequently supplied by federal governments. Even built-up and cosmopolitan cities need to have infrastructure development at some level, and this is financed by federal governments collecting money from taxpayers. Nevertheless, there is an infrastructure gap in developing countries. The level of infrastructure needed is more than what the government can manage with their funding. For that reason, some of the solutions for poor infrastructure could be for private financiers, philanthropists and non-profit organizations to get engaged. A fine example of this is the non-profit architecture agency by Michael Murphy that constructs high-quality, safe healthcare facilities and schools in developing nations. Not only does this enhance recovery rates in healthcare facilities and provide kids with a better education, but the company even stimulates work creation by employing individuals from the local neighborhood. Also, all their builds utilize regional materials, once again increasing revenues for local businesses.
Bad infrastructure and poverty are couple of ideas that are highly linked together. Economic hardship is one of the major causes of poor infrastructure, but simultaneously a lack of poor infrastructure causes poverty. Towns not having accessibility to power supplies, water and sanitation supplies, waste management systems, telecommunication systems, health care systems and schooling systems will make it difficult for them to escape the cycle of severe poverty. Probably an component of infrastructure that is under-considered is transportation networks. Rural areas not having roadways or trains to cities means that they are entirely isolated from areas where there are more job and social networking prospects, as well as higher quality healthcare and schooling facilities. Consequently, the work of Gagan Gupta, a co-founder of a business that constructs transportation links like roads in developing countries, is so crucial.