Sustainable and climate-resilient infrastructure has been well-recognized as an essential foundation to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth, deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and meet the targets of the Paris Agreement. Infrastructure is playing a more critical role than ever in the era of post-pandemic in order to rebuild economics. Even before COVID-19, statistics have already shown a considerable financing gap for infrastructure across the globe; three years into the pandemic, the gap has widened even larger. Therefore, there is a pressing need to ramp up investments in sustainable infrastructure and tackle large deficits in infrastructure services, especially in emerging markets and developing countries, respond to the structural changes underway and accelerate the replacement of aging infrastructure. We have a small window of opportunity to realize the potential benefits that may come with making the shift to this new sustainable development growth path.

To address this challenge, ESCAP is co-organizing the seventh meeting of the Infrastructure Financing and Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) Network of Asia and the Pacific1 with the Public-Private Partnership Promotion Bureau of State Enterprise Policy Office (SEPO) under the Ministry of Finance of Thailand, the China Public-Private Partnerships Center (CPPPC) under the Ministry of Finance of China and Asian Development Bank (ADB). The meeting aims to showcase good experience and development on how countries in Asia and the Pacific region build back better in the post-COVID era through effective infrastructure financing and PPP mechanism.