It's not enough to build infrastructure assets that produce electricity, provide safe drinking water, or facilitate transport. We also need it to be resilient to the damage caused by climate change and natural disasters. We want its benefits to reach everyone, including women, remote communities, and disadvantaged groups. It needs to be economically efficient and support sustainable development. Quality infrastructure also lies at the heart of the SDGs-without it, we won't achieve any of them.
We have a name for this-Quality Infrastructure Investment, or QII, a concept that evolved in Japan. The idea is to look beyond "grey" infrastructure to include other dimensions of quality, such as economic growth, efficiency, climate, resilience, inclusivity, and governance.
Because of urban sprawl, pollution, devastating earthquakes, economic shocks, and aging infrastructure, Japanese planners took a deeper look at the quality aspects of infrastructure.
Today, these are embodied in the six QII principles, which were endorsed by the G20 in 2019. - blog.wb.org/blogs
A version of this article appears in the print on June 03, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
