A field guide to infrastructure

Birdwatchers and nature enthusiasts already know that a field guide is a book designed to help the reader identify wildlife or other objects that occur naturally, like minerals.  It’s meant to be carried into the “field” to help distinguish between similar objects.

At the Global Infrastructure Hub, we thought it was time for a field guide to infrastructure, pointing out the different resources that populate the landscape and helping them connect better. The Global Infrastructure Hub’s Field Guide to Infrastructure Resources (Field Guide) collects together existing resources and helps the user establish connections among them. 

PPP-watchers will flock to it
The Global Infrastructure Hub’s Field Guide is a searchable, online database with links to existing infrastructure and finance organizations, data sets, reports, toolkits, templates, and case studies. It covers both traditional and PPP style procurement and includes resources across the full life-cycle for infrastructure investment – from the policy enabling environment to project planning and delivery to operations and secondary markets.

The Field Guide aims to ensure that existing infrastructure knowledge and resources from the public, private, and multilateral sectors are used more effectively. It is the first concrete step in developing the Global Infrastructure Hub’s knowledge sharing network, which is focused on aggregating and sharing information on infrastructure projects and financing among governments, international organizations, development banks, national infrastructure institutions, and the private sector. 

The Field Guide’s user -friendly interface is interactive, allowing users to communicate about individual resources, suggest additional content and contribute feedback. These user contributions will show whether a resource has been applied successfully in the past and help infrastructure practitioners are access the best and most relevant reports. 

This is just the first version of the Field Guide. The Global Infrastructure Hub plans to improve and add extra features to the Field Guide over time, including improved interactivity.

The Field Guide is only the first knowledge sharing tool from the Global Infrastructure Hub. Over 2016 and 2017, products under the Hub’s five mandated work areas - development of a knowledge network, data gaps, leading practices, capability building and the development of a consolidated project database – will be made available online. Each tool will ultimately be linked under a single, integrated platform.

Who’s behind the guide?
The Global Infrastructure Hub was established by the G20 to grow the global pipeline of quality, bankable infrastructure projects and to lift global growth. With an expected global infrastructure deficit estimated at up to $20 trillion to 2030, it is clear that this gap needs to be addressed.  To do this, the Hub focuses on closing data gaps, lowering barriers to investment, increasing the availability of investment-ready projects, and improving project and policy environments for infrastructure.
 
We believe that collaboration will facilitate the best outcomes in these areas, and to support this idea we participated in the Global Infrastructure Forum 2016, held during the Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group in Washington, DC.

The Global Infrastructure Forum 2016 brought together for the first time the leaders of the multilateral development banks (MDBs) as well as development partners and representatives of the G20, G-24, and G-77, to enhance multilateral collaborative mechanisms to improve infrastructure delivery globally. The Forum is organized in close partnership with the United Nations.

This is what sharing looks like
The Global Infrastructure Forum is a key example of the importance of collaboration and knowledge sharing. The Hub is committed to close collaboration with MDBs and other international organizations.  Our G20 mandate and work programs would not be possible without an effective, active and collaborative community of infrastructure practitioners, across both the public and private sectors.

Future products from the Global Infrastructure Hub will include:

• Best practice PPP risk allocation matrices – a best practice tool to consider PPP project risk allocation, for practitioners globally;
• Capability framework – an online interactive tool that measures a country’s infrastructure capability and helps target reforms and track their progress;
• Infrastructure needs – an up to date assessment of infrastructure needs for various sectors and geographies; and the
• Global project pipeline – a detailed global database of infrastructure projects, on which the public sector can list their projects.