Box 1: What Is Infrastructure

The concept of infrastructure is ambiguous and many definitions exist. The original definition stems from the military and applied to fixed and permanent installations, fabrications, or facilities for the support and control of military forces. In the civilian world infrastructure can include a wide range services, institutions, and facilities ranging from transportation systems and public utilities to banking and finance systems, laws and law enforcement, and education and research.

In another definition infrastructure is a large-scale technological system, a collection of basic, immovable physical facilities, equipment, and installations, needed to fulfill basic transport, distribution, storage, and processing functions, that is, infrastructure delivers essential public and private services and includes the operational procedures, organization, and management needed to make systems function according to their specifications.

In the World Bank’s definition infrastructure sectors include the energy, information and communications; mining, transportation, urban development, and water supply and sanitation, but education, health, and other social services, as well as finance, public administration, and law, are treated separately.