Finance arrangements and governance modes toward sustainable infrastructure: the case of urban railway projects in Manila, the Philippines

In recent years, the concept of sustainable infrastructure has gained popularity and is widely utilized and promoted by the international development community. However, implementation of sustainable infrastructure remains a challenge due to various enabling and disabling factors particularly related to financial arrangements and governance modes. This paper aims to fill the research gap in this area and investigate the factors that enable implementation of sustainable infrastructure, with a focus on the financial and governance aspects. To do so, the paper uses real urban railway projects in Manila, the Philippines as case studies for comparative analysis. The results suggest that from the finance and governance perspectives, public–private partnerships (PPPs) and official development assistance (ODA) finance are effective tools for implementing sustainable infrastructure, with some conditions, namely a mixture of vertical project management and horizontal process management, and the project environments having a positive effect on the trust building and collaboration among the stakeholders.