Assessment of highway infrastructure projects in Latin America and Perú from the competences point of view

Abstract It is stressed that Latin America and Perú should become more competitive. Under the actual development scenarios, attention to competences of programme managers and project managers related to public transportation infrastructure projects has risen substantially. An inefficient bureaucratic system is related with deficiencies of people skills and competences. On the other hand, an excellent system demands quality of the system and quality of people working in it. Thus, it is important to have excellence in administration and excellent administrators in the public sector. Three main lacking elements have been identified: i) lack of good education; ii) absence of fair salaries in the public sector; and iii) lack of incentives. Many misconceptions and disputed consequences have been observed and analyzed. It is clear that there is lack of competence among infrastructure transport project managers and teams, which causes trouble with the main goal of Peru getting benefits from these investments and achieving sustainable development. Furthermore, the right way to achieve these benefits is through a new model of education for project managers and programme managers in Perú. This education should be based more on competences than on qualifications. Thus, the International Project Management Association (IPMA) competence baseline, which is the standard that best fits to these needs, needs to be implemented to achieve the real contribution and benefits of these projects to society.