ABSTRACT
There is a robust literature on how a nation’s infrastructure can promote economic growth, further the goal of poverty reduction, facilitate movement of people and goods, provide energy where it is needed, and improve a nation’s health. 1 The literature also attests that although due to their varying starting points of their systems of public financial management that different countries go about the infrastructure process differently, there is also a common feature among countries in that the delivery of infrastructure services is inherently intergovernmental or “multi-tier.” These twin messages fit the topic of this chapter: the monitoring of (decentralized) infrastructure assets that provide a range of services designed to meet basic, but at the same time, varied and social and economic needs in a manner that addresses a multiplicity of stakeholder interests (Bird, 1994; NRC, 1995).
