Infrastructure Projects Importance, Benefits and Challenges

Overview
In the light of the facts and information available from the World Bank Group (2006) that numbers of citizens have; no access to clean water are 1.1 billion, no access to electricity 1.6 billion, no access to main roads 1.0 billion and more than 2.4 billion without the adequate sanitation services, after those facts, no doubt that infrastructure projects and services are the backbone and the key ingredient of the sustainable development of society, economic growth and poverty reduction, we would achieve that by providing a respectable standard living for countries from efficient energy, transportation, water & sanitation and information & communication systems (UOL, 2011, pp. 1-2)

Importance of Infrastructure Projects(Society Development)

As suggested by Stantander and Sanchez-Silva (2007, p.297) to moving from the traditional thinking perspective toward the new paradigm of the holistic thinking focusing so from this point of view the development of society has three main perspectives economic, environmental and social. The balancing and integration between those corners of the development triangle defined by Munasinghe (2007) could describes the importance of infrastructure projects to the society development in the next section y Economic Aspects

Concludes the economic growth, improving market efficiency and the stability of prices and employments related to the global markets, many empirical studies have recognized very high earnings to the investments of infrastructure that it could raise the productivity efficiency and output enhancement of citizens through its improvement of the life quality for them as water supply, sanitation, energy saving, clean technology and activation of the potential export verses import substitution (Trivedi & Gaba, 2010) y Environmental Aspects

Concludes the natural resources, pollution and the resilience of biodiversity, infrastructure projects contributes for the extracting of the natural resources through the resources extraction networks as identified by Goodman and Hastak (2006,p.1.2) mines, platforms and mines, in addition its contribution of pollution preventing and resilience of biodiversity through waste minimization, recycling, treatment and disposal,

Social Aspects

Concludes life quality, empowerment, poverty, employment opportunities, infrastructure projects improve the social networks either in transportation, communications, health caring or learning, it raise the levels of trust in individuals, groups or institutions and making the voicing is heard in the political field, increasing the empowerment of leaders and secure the governance relationship in its excellent role (Munasinghe, 2007) . Infrastructure Projects (Benefits and Challenges) y Construct, Operate and Maintain all infrastructures for new industrial cities This type of infrastructure projects contains several categories which defined by Goodman and Hastak (2006, p.1.5) at the same time, that it is a development of a new project contain all networks and the provision of water resources, routine maintenance and operation along 30 years and rehabilitation and reconditioning of the different facilities, this type of projects under progress now in different locations and cities at KSA as; Riyadh, Jeddah, Alkharj, Sudair, Dammam and Yanbh. The main benefits of such projects achieving stepping up of economic growth that every city contains minimum three hundred multiple industries factories, developing new water resources through deep wells and improving the life quality for citizens through enhancement their productivity and creating new industries communities. The main challenges the diversity of stakeholders in each stage of the project; that at the design stage regulators bodies and consultant, at the construction phase clients and contractors, at the operation phase the factories owners and environmental officers and at the disposal phase the health and safety regulators which may lead to conflict of interests (Howes & Robinson, 2005, p.19) Another challenge that costs and benefits estimation could not be determined easily due the high uncertainty of this type of projects (Stantander & Sanchez-Silva, 2007, p.298), the last and critical challenge here none of the consultant and contractors are familiar with the management and maintenance of such projects (Melson & Kronstam, 1999, p.73) y Enhancing the efficiency and duplicating the capacity of terminal (3) at Cairo airport

This project aims for service improving, capacity duplicating, reaching the international standards and inviting the participation of private sector in airport management and service delivery. The main benefits representing in economy growth through recording the airport into the competitive market after that renovations, achieving the optimum operation management objectives through traffic management, maximum utilizations which related to the environmental aspects The main challenges representing in the change position of stakeholders in the determination of the prequalification of the potential bidder that he must had completed at least one similar (quality and value) project within the past ten years which supported by the learning changing position by Elias, et al. (2004, p.102). This project exposed at the planning stage to the challenge of decision making defined by Faizal, et al. (2009, pp. 87-88) that the alternatives of improvement a& duplications was too broad and insufficient information about the effects of each alternatives

Reference List
Elias, A.A., Jackson, L.S. & Cavana, R.Y., 2004. Changing Positions and interests of stakeholders in environmental conflict: a New Zealand transport infrastructure case. Asia pacific Viewpoint 45 (1), pp.87-104 Faizal, M.O., Bambang, T. & Johnny, W., 2009. Infrastructure Project Planning: Progress in Contemporary decision Support Tools [Online] Available at: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/28179/1/c28179.pdf [Accessed: 05 November 2011] Goodman, A.S. & Hastak, M., 2006 Infrastructure planning handbook: planning, engineering, and economics. New York: ASCE Press Howes, R. & Robinson, H., 2005. Infrastructure for the built environment: global procurement strategies. Burlington, Massachusetts: Butterworth-Heinemann Melson, S., & Kronstam, T., 1999. An approach to infrastructure client projects. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management 6 (1), pp.71-77 Munasinghe, M., 2007. Sustainable Development Triangle [Online] Available at: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Sustainable_development_triangle [Accessed: 03 November 2011]

Santander, C.F., & Sanchez-Silva, M., 2008. Design and maintenance program optimization for large infrastructure systems. Structure and Infrastructure Engineering, 4 (4), pp.297-309 Trivedi, J., & Gaba, S., 2010. Infrastructure Development in India [Online] Available at: http://www.coolavenues.com/mba-journal/operations/infrastructuredevelopment-india [Accessed: 04 November 2011] UOL/LOE., 2011. Lecture notes from Module 7 Integrated Infrastructure Management Week 1: Civil Infrastructure defined and explored [Online] Available at: University of Liverpool/Laureate Online Education Blackboard [Accessed: 03 November 2011] World Bank Group, 2006. Social Development & Infrastructure: Working in partnership for Sustainable Development [Online] Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/Resources/2443621164107274725/3182370-1164201144397/SDV&Infrastructureweb.pdf?resourceurlname=SDV&Infrastructure-web.pdf [Accessed: 04 November 2011]