In the 1970s I was consulting for the US Agency for International Development on health planning in Ghana. One of the major issues was that a lot of the hospital equipment was not working. Costly equipment donated by well-meaning philanthropic organizations from Europe and the US was abandoned in the corridors unused. When I asked my hosts why, they said, “Oh, it broke down.” Why did it break down? There was either no maintenance or bad maintenance.
As I travel the world, I stay in hotels. I was once in a beautiful hotel in a developing country. But the bath did not work, the toilet did not work, and not all of the lighting did work. They spent a lot of money building this hotel, so what went wrong? Maintenance.
It is not enough to invest, build, and develop. You still have to maintain what you developed, built, or invested in. The same thing would be true for your garden or car.
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