Sustainable Infrastructure: How can we promote “sustainability” in infrastructure projects in developing countries?

■The development community has shown increasing interest in the concept of sustainable infrastructure over the past few years. There have been numerous initiatives, reports, and seminars on the concept of sustainable infrastructure. However, there is still little comprehensive research on how to realize sustainable infrastructure development in developing countries; ■ This policy note discusses the findings of a series of research on sustainable infrastructure, focusing on finance and governance aspects, and presents practical suggestions on how to realize sustainable infrastructure projects for both policymakers in developing countries and practitioners of international cooperation in developed countries; ■ This policy note first introduces the concept of sustainable infrastructure and its financial and governance success factors. It then discusses the findings of research on how PPPs (public private partnerships) and MDB/BDB (multilateral/bilateral development bank) finance—regarded as critical financial and governance success factors in theories on development—can work to realize sustainable infrastructure development; ■ Based on these findings, this policy note provides several practical recommendations to realize sustainable infrastructure development, including: 1) Developing countries should consider using assistance from MDBs/BDBs in realizing PPP infrastructure projects by coordinating relevant stakeholders; 2) MDBs/BDBs should be involved in infrastructure projects from the planning phase to promote sustainability perspectives; and 3) MDBs/BDBs ,together with the international development community, should maintain and promote the current global trend prioritizing “sustainability” and “quality” in infrastructure projects