Almost 50 sustainable road solutions step forward

In response to a call for submissions issued by the GI Hub and eight multilateral development banks (MDBs) in March 2023, nearly 50 technology providers have submitted solutions to make roads more sustainable in emerging markets.

About this program

The call for submissions is a program of the GI Hub and our MDB partners: African Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Inter-American Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, World Bank, World Bank Global Infrastructure Facility.

The program’s purpose is to help governments and investors in the roads sector in emerging markets make roads more sustainable by providing access to a pipeline of technology-enabled solutions.

The call for submissions closed on 12 April, and initial assessment identified the qualifying submissions

After the 12 April submission deadline, screening began to identify the qualifying submissions. Qualifying solutions are those that demonstrated they comply with the mandatory criteria of the call for submissions, are ready to implement or deploy within 12 months, and meet one or more of the following use cases:

• Prevent critical asset failures and manage costs by enabling road maintenance to be more accurately prioritised
• Ensure roads continue to operate during disasters and extreme weather events by improving road resilience
• Help prioritise CO2 emission mitigation efforts by more accurately measuring and analysing emissions
• Support decarbonisation and reduce pollution from roads during design, construction, and operation
• Minimise the loss of human lives by improving road safety, particularly in and around construction sites, city streets, and school zones.

The response was excellent

The submissions come from 19 countries across Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East, North America, and Oceania. The solutions they propose address a wide range of opportunities to make roads more sustainable and use a range of different InfraTech approaches and technologies. The diversity of the solutions is a strong indicator of the number of technology solutions that are awaiting their opportunity to break into the infrastructure sector and scale up.

What’s next?

The GI Hub and MDB partners are very pleased with the high number and quality of submissions received, and are looking forward to closer evaluation of the qualifying submissions. We will announce the top 5 solutions in May 2023. These top 5 will receive coaching to pitch their solution to the MDBs for consideration on current and future road projects.

If you submitted a qualifying technology solution to the Call for Submissions, we will be in contact with you in the coming weeks to advise if you are being progressed to the top 5, and to invite you to have a case study featured in our InfraTech Knowledge Hub.

Thank you to all the technology companies who have submitted, and to all our peers and partners who helped spread the word about this program. We look forward to the positive outcomes to come for roads in emerging markets.