Between sustainability and geopolitics: the role of infrastructure in the post-pandemic world

In the last decade, infrastructures have increasingly become a geopolitical instrument of influence in the hands of the major international powers, which have used them to enhance their political and economic connections with strategic countries through a constantly growing amount of investments. China and its Belt&Road Initiative, announced in 2013, is a telling example. Following the Chinese project, the launch of the G7 Build Back Better for the World Plan (B3W) and the 2019 G20 meeting in Osaka confirmed that the quality of infrastructural investments plays a crucial role in the contemporary international politics.

In this context - and on the occasion of the publication with the knowledge partnership of McKinsey&Company of the ISPI Infrastructure Observatory annual report, dedicated to the sustainable infrastructures - the conference aims at highlighting the evolving geopolitical role of major infrastructure projects and analysing the current infrastructure investment trends, against the backdrop of the recent fiscal plans boosting the realisation of sustainable infrastructures. Indeed, these latter are considered a fundamental asset in the post-pandemic recovery and in the achievement of the emission reduction goals adopted by more and more countries. 

However, in order to reduce the existing infrastructural gap  - $640 billions per year, according to the Global Infrastructure Outlook - a broader involvement of the private sector is required.

Private investments in infrastructures have collapsed from $156 billions in 2010 to about $100 billions in 2019. In particular, private investments in the emerging countries in 2020 amounted to $45 billions - 52% less than in the previous year.

Considering the geopolitical role of sustainable infrastructures and in light of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the transition to a sustainable economy, based on sustainable and high-quality infrastructures, will be determinant to the future of the country.

How will the infrastructural geopolitical competition evolve at the global level? Which are the current investment trends in the field of sustainable infrastructure and which are the European and Italian priorities? How to encourage the growth of private investments?

 

The conference has been broadcasted on Facebook, YouTube and on ISPI website.