Presenters: Marianne Fay and Michael Toman
Infrastructure is essential for increasing economic progress and reducing poverty. The choices made in the type and scale of infrastructure investment also have major implications for environmental sustainability. The paper concludes the following:
• To date, limited progress has been made in expanding infrastructure access in the vast majority of developing countries, with the notable exception of East-Asian NICs and other countries in the region such as China and Vietnam.
• Moreover, Infrastructure expansion often has come at the expense of the local environment, as well as complicating responses to the longer -term challenge of climate change.
• These …show more content…
What does not get measured often does not get done.
• As to environmental sustainability, in many cases it is not that well integrated into countries’ general strategies for development. Incorporation of the environment into public sector infrastructure expenditures may give way to concerns about investment costs and more immediately pressing needs. Price signals and enforceable regulatory standards also may fall short of what is necessary to adequately incorporate environmental concerns in private sector infrastructure investment.
• Private participation has an important role to play in infrastructure expansion. Indeed flows of capital associated with private participation in infrastructure (PPI) amount to about 1.2% of developing countries GDP today. PPI is also generally associated with fairly substantial increases in efficiency. However, historically PPI has been most relevant for telecom and, to a lesser extent, energy, with a limited role in water, sanitation and transport. Even under the most favorable of conditions, moreover, PPI has represented only about one sixth of needed investments in infrastructure. So while PPI is important, and is likely to continue increasing, it is by no means a magic …show more content…
The types and scale of infrastructure investment and its ongoing management constitute a key part of achieving “green growth” – growth that reduces poverty and is environmentally sustainable. Other factors also have decisive influences on green growth, notably the nature of regulatory standards and economic incentives for reducing environmental degradation; availability and affordability of technologies with lower environmental impact; availability of complementary knowledge and skills; and broader issues of institutional capacity and governance. Since these factors in turn affect infrastructure decisions, there is strong interdependence among the various influences on green