Infrastructure projects drive economic progress and national development. Delays in gaining access and securing approvals from authorities, however, remain one of the biggest threats to timely execution. These delays raise project costs, weaken investor confidence, and lead to public dissatisfaction. Understanding the root causes is critical to finding long-term solutions.

Symptom: Delay in Authorities' Access and Approvals

At the surface level, the delays present as:

  • Prolonged, unpredictable, or inconsistent approval processes
  • Delayed land access or site handovers
  • Regulatory reviews that extend without clarity

2.1. Complex and Fragmented Regulatory Environment

1. Multiple Agencies with Overlapping Jurisdictions

Most infrastructure projects need clearance from various departments including environment, transport, urban development, and utilities. Each one follows different rules and timelines. This creates:

  • Duplication of paperwork
  • Conflicting requirements
  • Delayed coordination

2. No Centralized Coordination Mechanism

Without a unified command center to coordinate the various agencies involved, project delivery teams must navigate a complex bureaucratic maze independently.
  • Agencies rarely synchronize their processes
  • There is no “single window” where applications can be processed collectively

3. Historical Regulatory Silos

Many agencies work under outdated laws created without anticipating the complexity of modern infrastructure. These silos reduce collaboration.
  • Each agency protects its mandates
  • Cross-agency coordination is limited by legal autonomy

4. Institutional Turf Protection

Agencies resist sharing authority due to fear of losing control over budget, staff, and relevance. This leads to fragmented decision-making.

5. No Executive-Level Policy for Harmonization

In the absence of higher-level mandates, coordination between departments remains optional rather than required.

6. Political Sensitivity Toward Bureaucratic Reform

Attempts to restructure longstanding bureaucracies face internal resistance and political hesitation.

7. Weak Industry Push for Reform

Industry stakeholders often face these issues alone. Few collective platforms exist to lobby for systemic reform.

8. Dispersed Sectoral Representation

Each industry (power, housing, transport) has its own associations. This weakens their combined influence.

Mitigation: Executive-Led One-Stop Clearance Bodies

  • Create centralized approval offices under executive mandate
  • Build digital platforms for cross-agency coordination and real-time tracking
  • Enforce fixed decision timelines with service-level agreements

2.2. Regulatory Shifts During Ongoing Approvals

1. Regulations Updated Without Transition Management

New regulations are often applied to projects already in the pipeline, forcing redesigns and resubmissions.
  • Retroactive application of new laws disrupts planning certainty
  • Lack of “grandfathering” provisions undermines investor confidence

2. Policy Disconnect from Implementation Realities

Policymakers craft new regulations without consulting people responsible for execution and not understanding project-level implications, causing misalignment.

3. Limited Industry Consultation in Regulatory Drafting

When industry feedback is requested, it often arrives too late to influence final policies.

4. Consultation Processes Lack Transparency and Timelines

Stakeholders are not given adequate time or visibility to prepare for new rules.
  • Public notice periods may be short
  • Stakeholders may not even be aware of consultation opportunities

5. Agencies Lack Capacity for Stakeholder Engagement

Resource constraints limit proactive, meaningful engagement with industry, especially for technical or large-scale projects.

6. Budgeting Prioritizes Compliance Over Stakeholder Relations

Stakeholder engagement is often treated as a secondary activity compared to regulatory enforcement.

7. Leadership KPIs Focus on Rule Enforcement

Agency success is typically measured by volume of regulations issued or enforced, not by industry satisfaction or practical implementation.

Mitigation: Transparent Regulatory Impact Assessment

  • Mandate public consultation for all new rules
  • Run technical and economic impact assessments
  • Pilot major rules through sandbox environments before full rollout

2.3. Lengthy Internal Review Processes

1. Limited Technical Expertise or Staff Capacity

Many regulatory agencies lack qualified staff and relevant skills to review modern infrastructure proposals efficiently. Specialists such as environmental scientists, transport modelers, or safety engineers are in short supply.

2. Talent Retention Issues

Public sector roles struggle to attract and retain talent due to lower pay and slower growth compared to private sector that often offers better compensation, career prospects, and work environments.

3. Rigid Government Hiring Practices

In many countries, Civil service recruitment is often governed by:
  • Lengthy recruitment processes
  • Rigid qualification criteria
  • Seniority-based promotion systems

4. Uncompetitive Compensation Structures

Pay grades are not adjusted for high-demand technical roles, widening the talent gap.

5. Budget Constraints

Agency budgets often shrink or stagnate even as project volumes increase.

6. Legislative Funding Disconnect from Agency Workloads

Government appropriations rarely consider project complexity or volume when assigning funds.

7. No Performance-Based Budgeting

Agency funding models lack performance incentives for reducing approval backlogs.

Mitigation: Build Professional Regulatory Cadres

  • Introduce technical career tracks within regulatory agencies
  • Align budgets with project volumes and technical complexity
  • Offer competitive pay for critical skills

2.4. Inconsistent Interpretation of Regulations

1. Absence of Unified Guidelines

Many regulations are vague, leaving wide room for individual interpretation by different reviewers.

2. Vague Legal Language

Rules are often written with broad language, which allows flexibility but causes inconsistency.

3. Drafting Without Field Input

Legal and policy teams draft rules with minimal input from technical reviewers.

4. Silos Within Agencies

Legal, technical, and administrative divisions work in isolation without coordination.

5. No Incentives for Internal Reform

Agency leadership is rarely rewarded for improving process quality or consistency.

6. External Oversight Focuses on Output

Legislative and executive oversight often emphasizes quantity of regulations rather than user experience.

Mitigation: Standardized Guidelines and Shared Knowledge

  • Create standard operating procedures with examples
  • Build internal platforms for case-sharing and interpretation
  • Form multidisciplinary policy-drafting teams

2.5. Excessive Document Submission & Resubmission Requirements

1. Lack of Digital Systems

Manual, paper-based submissions increase chances of document loss and duplication.

2. Underinvestment in IT Infrastructure

Permitting departments often operate with outdated technology or none at all.

3. Lower Priority for Internal Services

Permitting functions receive less attention compared to citizen-facing digital services.

4. Limited Awareness of Economic Impact

Decision-makers often overlook how delays damage investment flows and GDP.

5. No Metrics for Delay Cost

Very little data exists on the cost of delays to the economy or businesses.

6. Disconnect Between Economic and Regulatory Agencies

Lack of coordination weakens the link between competitiveness goals and regulatory reforms.

7. Absence of Efficiency Mandates

Regulatory performance rarely forms part of national competitiveness strategy.

Mitigation: Complete Digitalization of Permitting

  • Launch online portals for document submission, progress tracking, and issue resolution
  • Automate internal workflows for faster routing and accountability
  • Apply AI tools for preliminary reviews and quality checks

Cross-Cutting Solutions: A Holistic Path Forward

Fixing permitting delays cannot stand alone. Each solution must connect with other systemic levers across the project lifecycle to prevent cascading cost and schedule overruns. The following integrated pathways highlight how Access & Approvals reforms interface with other critical clusters of PM²:

Executive-Led One-Stop Clearance Bodies and Digital Portals

Streamlines fragmented governance while directly strengthening governance and stakeholder management (Cluster 7), ensuring agencies and industry align under unified service-level agreements.

  • Transparent Regulatory Impact Assessments and Consultation Frameworks
    Builds predictability in the policy environment and reduces retroactive disruptions, while reinforcing planning and readiness (Cluster 1) by giving project teams greater certainty on compliance pathways.
  • Professionalized Regulatory Cadres and Capacity-Building Programs
    Expands agency capability and retention, directly linking with workforce capability (Cluster 8). Skilled, adequately resourced regulators accelerate reviews and reduce inconsistencies.
  • Unified SOPs and Internal Knowledge-Sharing Platforms
    Standardizes interpretation of regulations across departments, supporting risk management (Cluster 4) by reducing ambiguity and dispute potential while feeding into governance and learning (Cluster 7).
  • End-to-End Digitalization of Permitting Systems
    Automates submission, review, and tracking while integrating with performance reporting and intelligence (Cluster 5). This not only improves visibility of delays but also enables predictive analytics for bottleneck resolution.

Challenge Area

Recommended Solution

Fragmented Governance

Create Executive One-Stop Shops for integrated permitting

Policy Uncertainty

Institutionalize Regulatory Impact Assessment and transparent consultations

Agency Capacity Constraints

Invest in Professionalization, Competitive Pay, and Capacity Building

Inconsistent Interpretations

Develop Unified SOPs and Internal Knowledge Bases

Manual, Inefficient Systems

Fully Digitalize Permitting Processes end-to-end

Why Integration Matters

Addressing Access & Approvals in isolation only shifts the bottlenecks elsewhere. Each recommendation reinforces not only this cluster but also the wider ecosystem of planning readiness, risk management, governance, workforce capability, and performance intelligence. Only by treating these interdependencies as one connected system can infrastructure projects break free from chronic bureaucratic delays and deliver outcomes at pace.

Conclusion

Delays in securing access and approvals remain one of the most significant risks in infrastructure delivery. These are not isolated or accidental failures. They stem from systemic issues that require sustained, executive-level attention.

Countries that treat regulatory efficiency as a competitiveness issue can attract faster investment, accelerate public benefits, and build stronger public-private trust. The choice lies not only in project execution strategies but also in structural commitment to better governance.