Development Gap Intelligence
What the data may indicate
Analysis over approved datasets, reported as an observation and a question — never as a conclusion about what should be built.
What this never does
Gap analysis never automatically declares a major infrastructure project necessary. An indicator can show that something is worth investigating; it cannot establish that a particular intervention is the right response. That determination requires study, and the output names the study rather than skipping to the answer.
Output fields
- 1Observed Indicator
- 2Potential Development Gap
- 3Evidence
- 4Confidence
- 5Affected Geography
- 6Related Sectors
- 7Recommended Further Study
Worked example
- Observed Indicator
- Reported distribution losses in the network exceed the regional median.
- Potential Development Gap
- Distribution network condition may be limiting the volume of generated electricity that reaches consumers.
- Evidence
- Utility operating data reported at national level. Not disaggregated by feeder, and not independently verified.
- Confidence
- Preliminary Estimate
- Affected Geography
- National, with the concentration unknown pending disaggregation.
- Related Sectors
- EnergyIndustrializationSmart Cities
- Recommended Further Study
- A network condition assessment disaggregated by feeder, to establish where losses occur and whether they are technical or commercial.
Method
How a gap is established, in four steps
“Gap analysis” can be used to justify anything at all, the gap being whatever the proposal happens to fill. These four steps are what stop it: each one is a comparison against something recorded, and a gap that fails any of them does not get published.
Establish the service standard
What level of provision is the sector actually working to — the national plan, the regulator’s target, the regional commitment? A gap measured against no standard is a preference. The standard is named and dated, and where none exists the analysis says so rather than inventing one.
Measure current provision
What exists today, from the operating data of the authorities and utilities that hold it, with the confidence level of each source recorded. Where the data is a survey estimate, it is published as one.
Test the difference for cause
A shortfall is not automatically an infrastructure gap. It may be a maintenance failure, a tariff problem, a staffing shortage or a distribution loss — and each of those has a cheaper remedy than building something. The analysis states which cause the evidence supports.
Name the study that would settle it
Every published gap ends with the specific work needed to convert it into a decision. A gap with no next step is a complaint, and complaints do not belong in a planning instrument.
Step three is the one that is usually skipped, and skipping it is how a country ends up with new capacity beside old capacity that was never repaired. A gap analysis that cannot distinguish an absent asset from a neglected one will recommend building in both cases, because building is the only answer it knows how to give.