[SOUND] Hi there! Welcome to another week of the Financing Infrastructure in African Cities move. Where we'll focus upon financial decision making through municipal governments. Decision making is a process and it goes through several stages. I like to divide decision making process into three sequential steps. First, identifying alternatives based on impact assessment. Second, risk assessment and third, methods for decision making. In this module, you will find two sessions, for two and for three, providing an introduction to decision alternatives. These two sessions will help you become familiar with three different approaches to decision making. You will also learn the importance of uncertainties involved in decision making. Further, in sessions 4, 4 and 4, 5, I will take you deeper into the decision-making approach, based on risk analysis. I will also share with you some of the most widely applied methods for decision-making in the sixth and seventh session of this module. Finally, for concluding this module in the eight session, my colleague Alouxious, will discuss with you the application of decision making approaches in nervous systems. So this module of your course is essentially single story in decision making process which is delivered to you over eight consecutive sessions. By the end of the module, you will be able to identify solutions, evaluate options, and make the right decisions. And you will be aware of the likely risks and uncertainties related to your decisions. In this video, I will describe the background for learning decision making over the next five sessions of the module. Let's now look into the way we describe decision alternatives in urban decision problems and of course again within their decision contexts. A crucial concept here is the so called impact matrix which in its most simple form is a list of decision alternatives. For example, if we have to choose a certain trajectory for a route, we could choose between trajectory 1 or trajectory 2, these are the decision alternatives. We then have a set of impacts which can be formulated in terms of criteria dependent on the decision, so we have variables measuring the impact. For instance, trajectory 1 cost 100,000 mini units. And alternative 2 costs 110,000 mini units. Likewise, you will have other criteria values. In this instance, the capacity of the trajectory, the number of houses you meet on the road that have to be replaced, or other impacts. So the impact matrix is a list of impacts and a list of decision alternative in its most simple form. But of course, reality is not as simple as in the simplest form of the impact matrix, although it remains a good starting point. The impact of our decision are not always certain and its effect are also spread over time. When considering financial impacts, you have outlays at the beginning but you also may have maintenance cost in the future. When you desire to have a system, will have income spread over time. When you look at the benefits of rote or certain trajectory, the impact may also be spread over time. So time and timing is a very important aspect. Then we have uncertainty. You can decide whatever you want, but the implementation can be fatal. And it means that you have to take into account the fact that your outcomes will be different than you assumed in your original decision. It may also be that your information is not so clear. There may be mistakes in your information and there may even be omissions in your data set. For sure you simply don't know everything, and sometimes far from everything. But, of course, there's hope. Of course, you can analyze, and that's the next part of our story. We can analyze to have a better feel to actual impact sketched originally in the impact matrix. And we will discuss this within our next video. [SOUND]