Blog

How can cities absorb the influx of people without developing new and more efficient ways of building, transporting, and consuming resources? Without significant disruption across urban infrastructure, the cities of the future will struggle to keep up, much less make progress toward things like mitigating climate change or providing quality education to every student.

Insights into the The Schuphol-Amsterdam-Almere (SAA) program, which has been the largest PPP program in the Netherlands in the last decade.

Increasingly, infrastructure leaders, investors and developers are recognising the need to not only increase the quantity of infrastructure investment globally to drive economic growth, but also the quality of infrastructure investment, to ensure that that growth and development is inclusive and sustainable.

Ambitions Beyond Growth- Economic and Social Survey of Asia-Pacific Region” by UN ESCAP 2019 reveals that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 would require an annual additional investment of $1.5 trillion for Asia-Pacific developing countries – equivalent to five per cent of their combined GDP in 2018, or about four per cent in terms of the annual average GDP for the period 2016-2030.

India’s project preparation framework is steered by its line ministries and sub-national governments, who are adopting a streamlined and systematic approach to project development. The capacity of public institutions to plan, prepare and deliver infrastructure projects is central to effective infrastructure development.

Although Indonesia’s PPP regulations date back to 2005, initially the number of actual project transactions between the government and private sector was very limited. The private sector’s interest in Indonesian projects was constrained by three main factors; the low quality of project preparation, low financial feasibility of projects (particularly those related to the determination of tariffs) and uncertainty related to the political risk of projects.

Communication throughout infrastructure project preparation should be recognised as a strategic activity. It should factor in the importance of all key stakeholder groups towards the project, tailor communicative actions to engage and inform them and foster a supportive environment.

Most infrastructure investment plans and government policies rely on the delivery of projects and programs. To achieve these and unlock the real benefits of infrastructure, it is vital that projects and programs are delivered well.

Well-planned and prioritised infrastructure investment improves productivity, engenders competitiveness and contributes to long-term sustainable economic growth.  Nevertheless, the extent of realising these benefits from infrastructure investment varies considerably across sectors, by regions and by level of regulatory and institutional maturity.

Inadequate financing for project preparation can result in projects being taken to procurement without the requisite readiness, which can lead to cost and time overruns during implementation, or a project that is not well-suited to the needs of the public.

Globally, governments are accountable for the development of infrastructure and the delivery of basic services in an affordable and inclusive manner. The ability of governments to nurture a conducive enabling environment for infrastructure investment has often been found to be a key differentiator between countries that successfully scale up infrastructure and those that face challenges in doing so.